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Making Sydney second to Melbourne -- an act some might say is unforgivable -- UberEats has just launched in the harbour city.

Beginning operations in Sydney on Tuesday, the food delivery service will serve up snacks from more than 100 restaurants including Three Blue Ducks, Chur Burger and Fratelli Fresh. UberEats started in Melbourne in April, with mixed reviews from customers.

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Food delivery will be available through the app between 11 a.m. and 10 p.m. daily.

So why the more than two month delay between Melbourne and Sydney? "We wanted to see the response," David Rohrsheim, general manager of Uber in Australia, told Mashable Australia.

"We could see within the first few weeks that it was going to be super popular, so then we started making plans in Sydney." Other Australian cities could launch before the end of the year, he added.

Credit: Uber

In Rohrsheim's admittedly biased view, Melbourne has been a coup. "It's a good success," Rohrsheim said. "We did expect that though, being a foody town -- that's why we chose Melbourne as our first Aussie city."

While he couldn't be specific about numbers in Melbourne, he estimated "tens of thousands [of people] have places at least one order."

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As in Melbourne, the UberEats service is not available across Sydney. For the moment, it's centred around the central business district, eastern suburbs and the inner west.

How many food delivery apps are too many?

The arrival of UberEats in Sydney prompts the question: Just how many food delivery apps can one city support? There are more recent boutique entrants like Deliveroo and Foodora (formerly known as Suppertime), as well as old favourites like Menulog, Eat Now and DeliveryHero. You should have stomach pains just thinking about it.

Rohrsheim admitted the space was a little crowded. "There are a bunch of businesses now trying to make delivery better, so it's a good time to be a customer."

In his view, UberEat's list of exclusive restaurants sets it apart. "Takeaway apps have traditionally been pretty dull," he suggested, "but now there's no compromise."

Uber also has a numbers advantage, as it can also offer food from its army of UberX drivers. "That means food is being delivered from a vehicle rather than from the back of a bike or on foot ... they want to know that the food is going to arrive in good condition," he explained.

Not to mention, Uber can also link restaurants up with a large customer base that is already using the app for ridesharing.

In Melbourne, some UberEats customers complained about inaccurate delivery times -- something Rohrsheim said the company would address. "The estimates will get more and more accurate with time," he said. "We're very familiar with the time it takes for a vehicle to get around Sydney -- we've got four years of data under our belt about that.

"I guess we'd just say, bear with us. The estimates will get better with time."

TopicsUber

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