Credit card spending on food delivery services rose to NT$1.06 billion (US$36.36 million) in June, double that of a year earlier and higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic, indicating that people have continued using such services, despite the pandemic easing, the National Credit Card Center said in a report last week.
Credit card spending on food delivery services, such as Uber Eats Taiwan and Foodpanda, accelerated to NT$852 million in March as the pandemic escalated and peaked in April at NT$1.26 billion, compared with NT$400 million to NT$700 million per month in the second half of last year, the center’s data showed.
Spending did not drop significantly as infections slowed in May and June, being about NT$1.05 billion in both months, up from a year earlier by 245 percent and 198 percent respectively, the report said.
Photo: Hsu Kuo-chen, Taipei Times
The number of transactions made on food delivery apps slid to 4.44 million in May and 4.5 million in June from the April peak of 6.12 million, it said, adding that the figures were about triple what they were a year earlier.
Most people pay for food delivery with a credit card, although some platforms only accept cash, the center said.
“Spending on delivery services did not lose momentum even after the outbreak eased, which might be because restaurants joining delivery platforms attracted more users,” the report said.
Many restaurants last quarter partnered with delivery providers as people avoided dining out due to the pandemic, which increased the options for customers, it said.
However, the rise in credit card spending on deliveries did not offset a decline in sales at restaurants, it said.
The food and beverage industry’s combined sales fell from NT$82.8 billion in January to NT$63.8 in June, the report said.
“It seems that food delivery merely cushioned the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food industry and helped restaurants weather the crisis,” the center said.
The data showed that 60 percent of delivery orders were less than NT$200 in the first six months of this year, compared with 45 percent a year earlier.
Orders from NT$201 to NT$500 accounted for 35 percent of the total in the January-to-June period, down from 45 percent a year earlier, the data showed.
Spending per order plunged 29 percent from NT$313 in the first half of last year to NT$222 in the same period this year, the data showed.
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