What DoorDash’s proposed acquisition of Instacart means for Uber, Amazon and the rest of the quick commerce space

Last week, DoorDash announced a proposed acquisition of Instacart for a gargantuan $17 billion. Should the merger go through, it would combine two platforms that together now account for 77% of consumer spending on U.S. delivery platforms, according to market research company Consumer Edge. 

DoorDash’s revenue growth has accelerated within the past few years as it has expanded beyond restaurant delivery, adding more apparel retailers and growing its owned delivery-only convenience store, DashMart. DoorDash’s revenue grew nearly 24% between 2023 and 2024, and nearly 28% between 2024 and 2025.

One of DoorDash’s most well-known competitors, Uber Eats, has seen its share of U.S. delivery platform spending hold steady for the past five years, according to Consumer Edge data, at just under 20%. Instacart’s share, meanwhile, has fallen from 26% to 18% over the past five years. 

So why is DoorDash so eager to take on the risk of an expensive, time-consuming acquisition, at a time when it is growing faster than its biggest competitors? 

The answer, some analysts say, is Amazon.  “Amazon is moving toward delivering things faster and faster,” John Harmon, managing director of technology research at Coresight Research. 

All these companies started out with different value propositions — DoorDash in restaurant delivery, Uber in ridesharing, Instacart in grocery delivery and Amazon in selling books online. But they have all since become laser-focused on delivering goods to customers more quickly.

Thanks to its Prime membership, Amazon has become synonymous with two-day shipping. But this year, Amazon has made significant investments in 30-minute and one-hour delivery, encroaching more rapidly upon DoorDash’s territory. In May, Amazon launched Amazon Now, which is now live in dozens of major U.S. cities. Amazon Now promises delivery on thousands of goods, ranging from groceries to household essentials, in 30 minutes or less. And in March, Amazon launched one-hour delivery in hundreds of cities. 

The risk for DoorDash is that Amazon could now become synonymous with 30-minute or one-hour delivery, in the same way it has become synonymous to consumers with two-day shipping.

To differentiate itself from Amazon — and, perhaps to ease concerns over antitrust issues — DoorDash dedicated much of its press release announcing the Instacart acquisition to painting a picture of how the acquisition would benefit local stores. The argument is that by acquiring Instacart, the combined company can offer a much more diverse array of technology and fulfillment services to locally owned grocers and restaurants, which wouldn’t have enough money to invest in these services on their own.

“More grocers could deploy Instacart’s technology to run their own websites and retail media networks, bringing them more sales and advertising revenue,” DoorDash’s press release stated. Brands would gain a scaled alternative for reaching customers online. Grocers could add capacity for online orders through DoorDash’s DashMart fulfillment services, and offer faster, more accurate and affordable delivery.

The acquisition also begs the question: How exactly can Uber differentiate itself in same-day delivery, now that two of its most formidable U.S. competitors have teamed up? 

One answer is that Uber can gain a greater foothold in markets beyond the U.S. And Uber has pursued some mega-deals of its own to fend off the competition. In July, it announced its intent to acquire Germany’s Delivery Hero for $15 billion, which, per Reuters, would “create the largest food-delivery group outside of China.”

Uber, of course, also has one thing that DoorDash doesn’t: a ridesharing business. In recent years, Uber has focused heavily on investments that can further improve margins in its ridesharing business, such as investments in autonomous vehicles and growth in its paid subscription service, Uber One.

From a retail media perspective, a DoorDash-Instacart acquisition would create a lucrative opportunity for advertisers in the sense that data from restaurant delivery orders, Instacart grocery orders and more could all be combined in one place, allowing the companies to target consumers more granularly across a variety of purchasing occasions. 

“If someone is exposed to an ad on DoorDash but then made a purchase through Instacart at a respective grocery or retail location, that allows more measured outcomes that can be proved,” said Greg Carlucci, senior director analyst at Gartner.

But Uber does have the advantage of allowing advertisers to target consumers when they are ordering a ride. It opens up the potential for advertisers to target shoppers on Uber during more specific moments, like when they’re traveling or on vacation, that might be more difficult to do through a combined DoorDash and Instacart advertising platform. 

All in all, the recent moves from DoorDash, Uber and Amazon point to just how lucrative the last-mile delivery space has become, as various players race to add more services and gain a greater share of customers’ wallets. 

“Last-mile delivery is [kind] of the last frontier where it controls a lot of additional transactions,” Carlucci said. 

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What we’re reading

• Instacart to wind down smart cart business — Bloomberg 
• FedEx lifts volumes as shipping rates, volumes drive revenue growth — The Wall Street Journal 
• US retailers face record holiday delivery prices from surcharges tied to costlier diesel — Reuters