Ride sharing in the world: more than just Uber

Competition in the ride sharing sector, which has created so much controversy in Italy, functions very well elsewhere. So much so that in other countries, particularly those outside Europe, many other very powerful alternatives to Uber  are also proving to be extremely popular.

It is no coincidence that the biggest multinationals have great confidence in the sector, as they have demonstrated with a series of major international investments: Google recently invested $1 billion in Lyft, Uber’s biggest competitor in the US (having already invested in Uber itself). In 2016 Apple invested $1 billion in Didi Chuxing, the major Chinese competitor to the American ride sharing service which in five years has received a total of $15 billion of investments. Investors in Israeli company Gett include Volkswagen. Then there is Japanese telecoms colossus Softbank, which participated in the super investment of over $1 billion in Ola, the Indian rival of Uber Technologies. Softbank has also recently acquired 15% of Uber itself (worth over $1 billion), becoming its biggest shareholder.

 

Bosch’s investment

The latest investment news involves Bosch, which has just acquired Splitting Fares Inc. (SPLT), a US startup headquartered in Detroit. SPLT manages a platform that enables businesses, universities and public authorities to offer their workforces ride sharing services. SPLT was founded in 2015. The service is currently used by around 140,000 users in the US, Mexico and Germany. “Smartphones are becoming the most important mode of transport”, explained Markus Heyn, member of the Board of Management at Bosch. By connecting users in the street with modes of transport, flexible multimodal transport is becoming a possibility: in just a few seconds anyone can decide how they want to travel and then go ahead and make the necessary bookings.

 

Ride sharing: the figures

According to an analysis by Statista the total revenue of the US ride sharing market in 2017 came to $12 billion and is expected to show an annual growth rate of 20% in the next five years. Ride sharing is an even bigger business in China: the total estimated revenue of its ride sharing market in 2017 came to $22 billion.

 

The situation in Italy

When it comes to the Italian market the figures speak for themselves: the total revenue of the Italian ride sharing market in 2017 came to just €477 million.

In Italy taxi drivers continue to call strikes against the joint ministerial decree for the reorganisation of the sector which would lead to greater deregulation, opening the doors to competition which, as we have said, is already a reality elsewhere. And works well. The best example is New York, proof of how all urban transport operators can coexist and grow. Having grown by 35% in five years, Uber certainly leads the way here and this year even outstripped the yellow cabs (in July it made 289,000 rides a day compared with the 277,000 of the yellow cabs). Uber offers various services in the Big Apple, from the classic Black hire service with driver to the cheaper rides of UberX, and from minibuses for six people through to rides accessible to the disabled. Then there are Lyft and Gett, direct competitors of Uber, which offer the same service.

Juno, a startup recently acquired by Gett, is a ride sharing service which, in order to acquire new drivers and therefore market share, takes a much lower commission from its drivers than its competitors (10% as opposed to the 20% or so taken by Uber). And then there are Arro and Way2ride, apps that make it possible to book and pay for traditional taxis online.