New Delhi: Renowned Taxi Aggregate Uber Technologies presumes to turn a profit in India soon as the Uber takes on home-grown competitive Ola, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick said.
India, one of the world’s fastest developing taxi markets in the World, has become Uber’s most critical battleground in Asia after it closed its China business into local rival Didi Chuxing.
“We see the path to profitability in India and we feel pretty good about that,” Kalanick said in a public interview on Thursday hosted by NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant in New Delhi.
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Uber launched in India three years ago and now administers its services in 29 cities, while home-grown rival Ola is now in 102 cities. Uber in 2015 had said it had invested $1 billion in India but has failed to give an updated figure.
The recent trade of its China market to Didi will free up Uber’s support, enabling it to invest more in India where Ola has bounded up with automakers and is accelerating the latest entertainment platform in its cars to attract customers.
“The only way to compete is you have to become local yourself,” Kalanick said. “We were always local from the beginning – but when we went to India and China we just had to take it to the next level.”
Uber and Ola’s battle for dominance in India’s $12 billion taxi business has resulted in a legal fight.
Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal was recently quoted in media reports as the foreign organisations were using their deep pockets to obtain a space in India.
“At the end of the day both companies have taken so much investment that a vast majority of my company as well as a vast majority of Ola is foreign owned,” Kalanick said, describing Ola as a tough competitor that drives Uber to innovate.
Kalanick is the co-founder of the Uber and the Uber Technologies has gone on to become the world’s most valuable startup worth $70 billion.
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