Second Measure: DoorDash led the 2019 US food delivery market with 33% of total sales, followed by GrubHub with 32%, Uber Eats with 20%, and Postmates with 10%
- DoorDash captured 33% of the U.S. market, Grubhub 32%, Uber Eats 20% and Postmates 10%. — Digital food delivery is projected …
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the confirmation of a shift that began mid-year: Second Measure's May 2019 data showed DoorDash overtaking Grubhub in monthly sales, and the full-year numbers make it official — 33% to GrubHub's 32% for the entire 2019 US market, with Uber Eats at 20% and Postmates at 10%. GrubHub had been the category's incumbent leader, so a full-year lead change is a genuine changing of the guard, not a one-month anomaly.
The gap also sharpens the strategic position of the two smaller players. Postmates, at 10%, had already been shopping itself to DoorDash, Walmart, Uber and others rather than proceed with its delayed IPO, and Fortune's earlier projection had Uber Eats on track for 25% of a $191B global market by 2023 — a forecast the 20% US share makes look conservative.
First-order effects
- GrubHub loses its standing as the US market leader for the first time in the category's history, now trailing DoorDash by a single point with a structurally slower growth rate behind it.
- Postmates' 10% share confirms it as a distant fourth, validating the acquisition-talk strategy it had already been pursuing over an independent IPO.
Second-order effects
- The scale gap makes consolidation the rational exit for the number-four player: Uber, whose Eats unit needed US share against DoorDash, bought Postmates for $2.65B in an all-stock deal six months later (Uber's Postmates acquisition).
- DoorDash's lead converts into a financing and expansion flywheel — by mid-2022 it was reporting $1.6B in quarterly revenue, up 30% YoY — forcing Uber Eats and GrubHub to compete on subsidies and fees rather than coverage.
Third-order effects
- The pattern points to a three-player US market (DoorDash, Uber Eats, and GrubHub) with the long tail absorbed — GrubHub's US share has since eroded to roughly 4% by 2025, showing how quickly leadership in this category decays without scale.
- If share concentration continues, the durable battleground shifts from restaurant coverage to unit economics and fee structures, since the top players now compete over the same demand pool rather than for new categories of it.
The trend: US food delivery is consolidating around scale leaders, with share leadership flipping fast enough that fourth-place players exit via acquisition rather than compete.