Uber Has Some PRETTY Big Plans For Expansion In India The San Francisco-based company is planning to make a major investment in their Indian arm, a top executive
By Ritu Kochar
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If the taxi aggregator market in India wasn't competitive enough, Uber's plan are sure to turn it into a battleground. Since it lost operations to Didi Chuxing in China, Uber has definitely stepped up its game to not make the same mistake in India and what they have in mind might give nightmares to its Indian counterparts.
The San Francisco-based company is planning to make a major investment in their Indian arm, a top executive said according to media reports. The cab-hailing company plans to buy as many as 200,000 passenger vehicles over the next two years and lease them out to drivers who want to join its cab-hailing platform.
Given Indian has been the second largest market for the company with local operations here accounting for 12% of its global market share, it is clear where Uber's priorities lie. With currently 400,000 drivers on the platform and a plan to add around a million more in two years, means some good tidings are in store for India. And here are a few we could list:
A party for the automobile industry
2 million drivers means 2 million cars and this is where the automobile industry will be profiting hugely. What may be the largest vehicle purchase by a single buyer in India, Uber will give a new boost to the Indian automobile industry at a time when the industry has just come out of years of slow growth.
The ball is likely to fall in the court of two automobile firms. The chosen ones are likely to be Maruti Suzuki and Tata who will who already has respective pacts with Uber for driver skilling programmes, vehicle purchase and finance solutions.
A similar deal was signed by Ola with Mahindra to purchase 40,000 vehicles in two years for its driver-partners. The deal is estimated to be worth Rs 2,600 crore, which seems a little overshadowed when we compare the Rs 13,000-crore worth opportunity for automakers Uber is planning.
1 in every 5 driver partner will be on Uber
Going all the way, Uber will not only give a million drivers a chance to work on the platform but also help driver-partners acquire their own cabs by arranging finance and negotiating deals with automakers.
In an interview to a media channel, Raj Beri, head of leasing at Uber India, further elaborated on the firm's major expansion plan. He said, "We aim to empower a million driver-partners by 2018 under our UberSHAAN initiative and expect that potentially one out of five new drivers would be on the platform through our leasing programme."
Go sharing economy!
As Internet is penetrating through the remotest village in India, people are beginning to accept the concept of sharing economy more. Who doesn't like to save some money when everything else is so expensive and this is we have risen above the concept of owning stuff and rather just sharing it with people. People are finally beginning to understand what we collectively have done to the environment and sharing economy lets everyone save it a little bit at time. In a country like India where the growing population is no help among factors such as intense traffic and lack of living space, sharing has become easy and the convenient way. The problem before was connectivity and Internet has bridged that and will bridge a lot more in years to come.
