Uber Eats and Deliveroo DOUBLED their sales in Australia in the last year - and experts say the food delivery companies are set to get even bigger

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Food delivery services have doubled their businesses in the last 18 months as four million Australians are choosing to order in instead of leaving the house.

Uber Eats is the front runner with 11.5 per cent of Australians using the app, along with other services such as Deliveroo and Hello Fresh following closely behind.

The growth has come as 'no surprise' to experts who believe more and more people are relying on the convenience of apps for food, leaving a path of empty restaurants behind.

One fifth of Australians are using delivery services such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo (file image)

Research by Roy Morgan found that within the last 18 months food delivery services had doubled their businesses 

Research by Roy Morgan showed that in the middle of 2018 only 1.98 million Australians were using delivery services.     

'Roy Morgan has closely monitored the usage of apps over the last few years and the rapid take-up of meal delivery service apps since UberEATS and Deliveroo launched in mid-2015 is no surprise,' Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine said.

'Uber overtook the taxis as the preferred private transport service in mid-2019 and with only a fifth of Australians now using meal delivery services there is still plenty of room to grow usage.'

The research found that women were most likely to use delivery apps more than men and the biggest age group was millenials (30 per cent).

Those living in the inner city suburbs (23.9 per cent) are also more likely to order in with than those living in rural areas (ten per cent).

'Younger Australians, and many enterprising older people as well, have quickly taken to the convenience of apps available in the palm of one's hand to streamline the use of everyday services and remove the friction that many had probably never even considered,' Ms Levine said.

'This dynamic of innovation and the increasing ease-of-use for accessing services is itself creating further momentum to innovate and find new goods and services that are suited to the disruption a well-designed app can provide to remake an industry to cater for time-poor or impatient consumers.'

The surge of the delivery services are posing a grim future for food industries.

Wes Lambert, CEO of Restaurant and Catering Australia said some restaurants weren't able to compete with apps like Uber Eats.

Experts revealed that women are more likely to order food online as well as those living in the inner city areas 

'Some restaurants are finding themselves pushed to the brink of closing – a bad outcome for our social precincts, restaurants patrons and, ultimately, home delivery consumers. Others are ditching the platforms altogether,' Mr Lambert said earlier.

'Under the Online Delivery platforms, where under the 'partner 'model, the platform is profitable, and the restaurant is not. Restaurants have been forced into taking on an unwanted business partner they didn't ask for and who takes a 35% cut. At that rate, meals become unprofitable for the restaurant.'   

PayPal shopping expert Jess Rix said the latest shopping trends reflect the need for convenience to fit with our busy lifestyles.

'We've become a nation completely obsessed with convenience, which is only going to grow each year,' she previously told Daily Mail Australia.

'It's associated with improved technology on our mobile phones where we now have access to so many brands at our fingertips.'

'Convenience reigns supreme among consumers: we are choosing not to leave the comfort of our own homes, let alone our own sofas, to shop – and why would we when we've all got the equivalent of a limitless shopping centre sitting in the palm of our hands and only a click away.'

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Roy Morgan for further comment. 

Australians are more likely to stay at home and order in Uber Eats than dine out (stock image)