Uber-the baby born in San Francisco flown down to India had shown its feet well in the cradle. It came in and sprang up in just no time – leaving all competitors aghast and facing backlashes from cities in many across the world. India being its largest market outside U.S., it is leaving no stone unturned to tap it to it’s best. The service, which has nothing but a meek app is stinging the existing players.
Uber will invest an additional $1 billion (about Rs. 6400 Cr) in India in the next nine months as they say the India market is growing exponentially and is a global priority. This move is to improve operations, which are already steady and are gaining a lot of customer applause. It has been expanding to cities across the Indian maps ever since inception and would continue to do so with the humongous cake of investment coming in.
The taxi summoning service has already jumped to serving 18 cities from the previous 11. However, it is yet to beat Ola which functions in 100+ cities and commands over 750,000 rides a day throughout India. Uber and Ola are always trying to out do each other, and are both dealing with regulatory and licensing hurdles. They offer newer services to cross forth the other. However, the Uber driver being charged with a rape case in Delhi has created a slight blip in their growth journey in India.
The company is now looking at developing new products as well as payment solutions and establish a support network. It targets to have 200,000 driver partners in India by next year. “We are extremely bullish on the Indian market and see tremendous potential here,” said Amit Jain, president of Uber India.
Uber we see has got more aggressive with the Indian market as it is not doing great in China. Its business there is facing regulatory trouble. Those living in HK can only see their friends in NYC tweet about how comfortable their Uber rides are and crib of how their Uber drivers don’t even know the city well. This has made India one of their biggest priority, as they failed on targeting the market of the highest populous on the face of the earth.
As we said earlier, Uber is disrupting the face the on Indian taxi market and is now getting just all the more aggressive about it, to make up for the losses faced in China. The company which faced major backlash after being banned in Delhi back in December, still sprung up putting competitors in its backseat. It derives 80% of its profit from the leading cities of the country and hence doesn’t fear others, which serve in a hundred plus cities.
The company is planning to grow at a rate faster than a 40% of which it is at now. Investment and growth have gone hand in hand for many, what do you think about this one’s future? Do you think it would be able to hit a million trips a day it’s targeting at? Leave your comments below!
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