Uber Eats currently holds a 70 percent share of the Japanese food delivery market.
Coupang Eats, a food delivery platform from Coupang, has launched a pilot food delivery service in Tokyo. It is the company's first service launch abroad.
The pilot service called Rocket Now began operating in Tokyo's Minato district on January 14, according to industry sources.
The latest foray into Japan could be the next big breakthrough for Coupang, which is looking to expand its global presence.
This is Coupang's second attempt to establish a presence in the Japanese market.
The e-commerce platform had previously launched Coupang Japan in 2021, a quick-commerce service that delivered groceries and daily necessities to select Tokyo neighborhoods, but pulled out in 2023.
This time, the company is focusing on grocery delivery, which generally requires less initial investment than e-commerce services that rely on large logistics centers.
Industry observers are eager to see whether Coupang can gain a foothold this time, especially without WOW membership, which has been a growth driver for its domestic business.
WOW membership includes benefits such as free delivery and returns, free delivery of Coupang Eats and access to the Coupang Play streaming platform in Korea.
Coupang Eats grew in Korea after it introduced free delivery for WOW members in March 2023. According to MobileIndex data, Coupang Eats recorded 9.63 million monthly active users in December 2024, an increase of 72.1 percent year-on-year.
The Japanese food delivery market has grown in recent years. Grand View Research predicted that the market would grow by 8.4 percent annually and reach USD 35.45 billion in 2030, up from USD 22.62 billion in 2022.
Woowa Brothers, the operator of online delivery platform Baedal Minjok, entered the Japanese market twice, in 2014 and 2020, with both efforts ending in withdrawal within a year.
