Glovo Pulls Out of Bosnia and Herzegovina After Five Years

The Spanish company Glovo stopped operating in Bosnia and Herzegovina on August 10, closing out a market it had served for exactly five years and had entered by acquiring the domestic platform Donesi. The app took its last orders that day, and the call to exit was not made from the Sarajevo office but at the global level, as part of a broader realignment the company is carrying out across several markets at once.

Users in Bosnia and Herzegovina were not caught off guard by the date, since they had been told about it two months earlier. The company issued an official statement on June 10 and sent a message through the app that same day, reading: “Thank you for being part of the Glovo community. We appreciate your understanding during this transition period.”

The decision was made outside Bosnia and Herzegovina

The company did not frame the withdrawal as a response to poor performance in the country, but as a shift in geographic focus, a decision to direct money and people toward markets where it expects faster growth. The company statement said:

“This decision is aimed at further concentrating Glovo’s presence in markets so that efforts and investments can be directed toward key markets with high growth potential.”

The same explanation goes on to say that this refocusing, as the company put it, will allow Glovo to better serve the millions of users worldwide who rely on its app every day. Bosnia and Herzegovina ended up outside that list of priorities, and the company did not name any local factor as decisive.

What is the company telling its employees?

Part of the statement is devoted to the people who worked for the platform over those five years, and it is the only section that spells out a concrete obligation toward individuals:

“We sincerely thank all our employees for their exceptional contribution and dedicated work over the years, and we are committed to supporting the employees affected by this decision through this transition period with the utmost care and respect.”

The company also singled out the importance of the local ecosystem in Bosnia and Herzegovina, meaning the restaurants, shops and couriers that did business through the platform. It added a reassurance aimed at everyone owed money: “Furthermore, we want to give absolute assurance to all parties involved that we will fulfill all our financial and legal obligations.”

Five years since the Donesi acquisition

Glovo entered the Bosnian and Herzegovinian market in 2021, and not by launching a new service from scratch but by acquiring the local brand Donesi, which until then had been the name under which people in the country ordered food and groceries. The company opened its first local office in Sarajevo in July 2021, when the business took on the Spanish name and the yellow bag that soon became a familiar sight on the streets.

The whole run lasted exactly five years. The company arrived through a purchase and left through a decision made outside the country, with no transition arrangement announced to users as a replacement.

For users, the outcome is straightforward: as of August 10, the app no longer takes orders. For restaurants and couriers, it plays out through contracts, and the only timeframe the company has named is the transition period in which it promises support for employees and settlement of its financial and legal obligations. No other date from the statement has been made public.