36% Growth. Falling Profits. Compressed Valuations. What Changed in KSA Food Delivery in 2025?

KSA food delivery had its biggest growth year on record in 2025. The market scaled to a level that would have looked optimistic even two years ago, and consumer engagement hit new highs.

And yet, sector profitability went the other way. Platform valuations compressed. Restaurants, especially independents, ended the year in a tighter spot than they started.

This is the puzzle that has been quietly building across the Saudi food aggregator landscape. Founders, investors, and policymakers have all been asking some version of the same question: how does a market grow this fast while the economics underneath it move in the opposite direction?

Redseer has spent the last six months working through that question. Our full market perspective on KSA food delivery is being released in the coming weeks. Ahead of that, here is what is worth flagging now.

• 36% growth in the KSA food aggregator market in 2025

• SAR 24 Bn market size, close to a quarter of the total foodservice

• Q1 2025 marked a clear inflection in growth mix

Three key points to note before the full report

a) Growth was real. The mix changed.

KSA food aggregators went from a SAR 4 Bn market in 2019 to a SAR 24 Bn channel in 2025. That is a genuine, structural scaling story, and it now represents close to a quarter of total foodservice spend in the country.

But within that headline, the story changed sharply in early 2025. Until 2024, the market grew on organic adoption: more users, more restaurants on the platform, more occasions covered. From Q1 2025 onwards, a meaningful portion of incremental growth was bought rather than earned. Free delivery shifted from a promotional tool to an industry default. Discount intensity climbed across the board.

This is not a criticism of any single player. Every stakeholder, platform, restaurant, and investor was responding rationally to a shift in competitive posture. But the mix of growth matters, and it moved.

b) The consumer benefited. The economy tightened.

Order frequency rose. Monthly active users rose. Consumers moved across more platforms, comparing prices and promotions in real time. By any measure of engagement, the Saudi food delivery consumer has had an excellent year.

The economics underneath that engagement tell a different story. Average basket sizes came down. Willingness to pay for delivery dropped. And a meaningful share of the channel’s value pool moved from platforms and restaurants toward the consumer.

This is a familiar pattern in young digital markets. India saw it in food and groceries. Southeast Asia saw it in ride-hailing. The GCC has seen versions of it in quick commerce. What stands out about KSA is the speed. Most markets work through a phase like this over three or four years. KSA compressed it into roughly twelve months.

c) Valuations reflected the reset.

Platform valuations across the KSA food aggregator space compressed meaningfully through 2025. Some of that is fair: a market repricing growth that comes at the cost of unit economics is doing its job. Some of it is likely overcorrected.

The more useful question is what the recovery path looks like. Subsidy cycles do not run forever. Competitive posturing eventually normalises. Monetisation levers like advertising and merchant services typically scale through this kind of phase, not in spite of it. The full report walks through the math on what a credible profit pool looks like by 2030, and what it will take to get there.

What to expect in the full report

The full Redseer market perspective will quantify the shifts across stakeholders, cover what changed for restaurants and platforms specifically, and lay out a recovery path with numbers attached.

It is built on Redseer Benchmarks data going back to 2019, primary consumer interviews across Riyadh and Jeddah, and direct conversations with restaurant operators and platform teams over the last six months.

We will share it with this list as soon as it is live. If you would like early access or want to flag specific questions you would want the report to address, please reply directly.