Hellofood, a leading online marketplace for food delivery operating in more than 40 countries, is expanding its operations to Qatar.

Managing director Eyad Alkassar, who is overseeing the roll-out of hellofood services across the Middle East, said the expansion “marks a landmark moment for hellofood as we continue to grow. We’re very excited to extend our operations to Qatar.”

Founded in 2012, hellofood, and its affiliated brand foodpanda, coordinate delivery from over 22,000 restaurants around the world.

“Our goal is to show people that it’s more convenient and easy to order food online,” Alkassar said.

Consumers choose their favourite meal on hellofood.com or on its mobile app, hellofood processes and tracks the order, and the restaurant delivers it to the doorstep. “Being able to see the menus and prices of as many restaurants as possible is very important. Our customer service carefully tracks every order and responds to customer questions. In this way, we provide something our competitors cannot,” Alkassar said.

Despite the presence of some tough competitors, Qatar represents a potentially rewarding market for hellofood. Qatar’s 90 per cent internet penetration is greater than most developed countries and is the highest of all countries in the Middle East and North Africa, a statement said.

Khaldoon Tabaza, founder and managing director of iMena and hellofood’s main investor, sadi: “Qatar is core in many of the expansion strategies of our companies and we are working on launching several online businesses that follow the same criteria of hellofood in Qatar over the next few months.”

He added: “We will continue to support the expansion of hellofood across the region to reach our goal of becoming the dominant and leading online food ordering business in the region.”

Driven by a surge in the number of smartphone users in the country, hellofood has launched an easy-to-use mobile app. “hellofood tries to distinguish itself by being able to serve every and any customer – whether they speak English or Arabic, whether they use an iPhone or Android or order from their home PC.”

Hellofood has grown by more than 100 percent in its first 22 months and its mobile app has been downloaded more than 500,000 times, the statement said. It already has a strong presence in the Middle East region and continues to serve customers in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Lebanon. - TradeArabia News Service