Uber Technologies Inc. has sold its food delivery business in India in an all-stock transaction deal to local delivery outfit Zomato Media Pvt. Ltd.

The deal, announced today, will mean that Uber now has a 9.99% stake in the Indian startup. All information from the Uber Eats app will be transferred to Zomato, including customer phone numbers and the order history of those numbers.

The deal comes after Uber reported massive losses last year, and it’s reported that this deal is an effort to steady the ship during some turbulent times for Uber. Uber Eats experienced fast growth in India but also met with some stiff competition.

A Zomato takeover was already in the cards, with reports late last year suggesting that as the third-placed food delivery app in terms of installations, it might be time for Uber to hang up the gloves and sell. The food delivery business in India is expected to keep growing rapidly, so having a stake in the No. 1 company could be seen as good strategic move, the kind it has used to sell off other pieces of its business in the past year or so.

Zomato quickly became popular with Indian users with its added features, such as a reviews section and a reservation system on the app. In 2017, it added deals for members of its Zomato Gold program, which offered buy-one-get-one-free meals in thousands of restaurants. That was later extended to offering free meals as deliveries.

Uber won’t be getting out of the ride-haling business in India, although in that area it also faces strong competition from the India firm, Orla. Over the last few years the former had seen a rapid rise and currently has a bigger market share than Uber.

In 2018, Uber agreed to a takeover of its operations in Southeast Asia by Grab Taxi Pte. Ltd. That included the taxi side of the business as well as food delivery. In that deal, Uber agreed to walk away with a 27.5% stake in Grab.

“India remains an exceptionally important market to Uber and we will continue to invest in growing our local Rides business, which is already the clear category leader,” Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi said in a statement Monday.

Photo: Franklin Heijnen/Flickr