Postmates, the food-delivery startup, has closed its Mexico City operations and laid off dozens of employees, citing a lack of growth and a desire to focus more on the U.S. market.
The closure of the Mexico City office was announced Dec. 3. Postmates launched service in Mexico City, its first location outside the U.S., in November 2017.
“We made the difficult decision to end operations in Mexico City as we focus on our continued growth in the U.S.,” a Postmates representative said in an email to CNBC. “We continually review our business to ensure that staffing is aligned with current business needs and have made small adjustments as a result.”
Along with Mexico City, layoffs were reported at Postmates’ operations in a number of U.S. cities, including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Nashville, Tennessee, according to CNBC.
Postmates is a San Francisco-based on-demand delivery company founded in 2011. The company currently operates in 4,200 cities across the U.S.
Postmates was competing with Uber Eats, Colombia’s Rappi, Spain’s SinDelantal and China’s DiDi in the Mexican food-delivery market.
While Postmates operated only in Mexico City, its competitor Uber Eats has a presence in more than 40 cities across Mexico, according to Mexican news outlet El Sol De Mexico.
In the U.S., Postmates only has an 11% market share of meal-delivery sales, significantly trailing rivals DoorDash (36%), Grubhub (32%) and Uber Eats (15%), according to credit card data from research firm Second Measure.