Uber’s European expansion pause, confirmed to the Financial Times, has shelved five of the seven market launches the company announced just months ago, raising questions about whether the pullback is about operational discipline or deal-making strategy.
Back in February, Uber unveiled plans to enter seven European markets in 2026: Austria, Greece, Norway, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, and Romania. According to Reuters, those launches were projected to generate an additional $1 billion in gross bookings over three years. Five of those markets are now on hold. Austria, Norway, and Greece are among those paused.
Uber offered a publicly tidy explanation. Launches in Finland and Denmark had been a ‘huge success,’ the company said, and it now wants to ‘focus on continuing the momentum’ in existing markets. Consolidating recent gains is a reasonable rationale on its own. The timing, however, points somewhere else.
The Delivery Hero Bid and the Antitrust Calculation
Uber has been pursuing a takeover of Delivery Hero, the Berlin-based food delivery group, and the deal has proven harder to close than Uber may have anticipated. Uber’s initial indicative offer of €33 per share, valuing Delivery Hero at roughly €10 billion (approximately $11.6 billion), was rejected by the company’s board on 23 May 2026, according to Briefs.co. That bid arrived at a 1.76% discount to Delivery Hero’s last closing price on the prior Friday, per LSEG data.
Uber’s board subsequently considered a revised offer. A separate indicative bid of €38 per share made to a major Delivery Hero investor was also rejected, CNBC reported. Major shareholders have reportedly been seeking a price above €40 per share, a level neither offer has reached, according to Kavout.
Delivery Hero shares rose more than 10% on the Monday after Uber’s initial bid became public, after the FT reported Uber was weighing an improved offer. Uber stock fell 2.4% following the initial Friday reports of the talks.
A Stake Built Quietly, a Competitor Circling
Uber’s position in Delivery Hero has been built methodically. The company now holds approximately 19.5% of Delivery Hero’s issued share capital, plus a further 5.6% in options, making it the company’s largest shareholder, according to Briefs.co. That is a significant jump from roughly 7% ownership in recent months.
A piece of that build came through a regulatory requirement. In April 2026, Uber purchased a 4.5% stake in Delivery Hero from Prosus at €20 per share. The European Commission had required Prosus to divest that holding as a condition of Prosus’s €4.1 billion acquisition of Just Eat Takeaway, according to an Investing.com analysis.
Uber is not alone in watching Delivery Hero closely. Activist investor Aspex holds approximately 15% of the company, and DoorDash has been reported to be circling Delivery Hero’s Middle East and North Africa assets. Wolt, owned by DoorDash, already has deep roots across Northern and Central Europe, the same region where several of Uber’s now-paused markets sit, according to TradingView.
An industry source told the FT that pausing further expansion could help alleviate antitrust concerns around a potential acquisition. Delivery Hero operates delivery services in several of the markets Uber has now put on hold. Regulators assessing a merger between the two companies would be scrutinising overlapping operations; fewer overlaps could smooth the path to approval.
The gap between Uber’s current best offer and the price Delivery Hero’s shareholders are reportedly seeking leaves room for further negotiation, a revised bid, or a prolonged standoff. With DoorDash in the background and Aspex holding a meaningful blocking position, Uber’s next move on price may matter more than any market launch.
