Dara Khosrowshahi, the CEO of Uber, is in India now. It was in the August of 2017 when Khosrowshahi overtook the company from Travis Kalanick. Today while talking about his investments in India, he accepted their motive to be quite aggressive against their India-based rival Ola.
When asked about the reports about the collaboration between the two companies, he hysterically said, “it is fun to speculate about” these things. Both Uber and Ola are trying to get the top spot in the Indian market. Both of them have suffered driver protests, government opposition, and incumbent taxi services raising concerns over loss of business. Their ‘environment-friendly ride-sharing feature has turned out to be quite a game changer. It has received huge appreciation from every section of society.
Both Uber and Ola have lost billions of dollars over the last four years, says Business Standard. Most of it is believed to be caused by subsidizing rides for customers and paying incentives to drivers. Uber has used its global advantage and compensated for the loss from its profits made in other countries. Ola, whereas, is solely dependent on the equity capital provided by its investors, Softbank and Tiger Global. Softbank has invested in Uber as well. The fact that Softbank is a common investor in both firms gave birth to the aforementioned rumors of the two companies collaborating. There were some reports saying that a major stake in Uber could see its India unit being sold off to Ola.
Khosrowshahi has told ET Now, “I think we’re going to be quite aggressive in India as far as investment goes. One of the great structural advantages that we have at Uber is that we have many profit pools. Those profit pools in the mature markets in the US and Europe, allow us to actually lean into some of the developing markets”.
The CEO, putting an end to all such speculations, said,
My focus is on our quality of operations and our teams, that’s why I’m here. I’m here to meet with our teams, ministers, etc, to understand the market, and at this point I’m not really focused on M&A, although it’s certainly fun to speculate about. – Khosrowshahi
At this moment, both Uber and Ola are looking forward to expanding their service from offering just cab-hailing services to providing auto-rickshaws, motorcycles, and bicycles. Ola has already succeeded to quite an extent but Uber has only managed to add the auto rides.
While expressing his desire to make Uber more like a transportation company instead of a mere app for booking cabs, he said
I want to run the bus systems for a city. I want you to be able to take an Uber and get into the subway… get out and have an Uber waiting for you. – Khosrowshahi
