Since Uber exited Southeast Asia by selling its business there to the local competitor Grab, the question of Uber’s future in rest of the markets outside the United States has surfaced on multiple occasions.
The most recent one being Code Conference in the United States where Dara Khosrowshahi was being interviewed by Kara Swisher, the Executive Editor of Recode.
Among many other things, Kara Swisher asked the Uber CEO about company’s future in other markets outside the United States, “I think a lot of people feel that you’re just going to carve up the world. You got rid of China, that you’ll do that in other markets. Do you see that happening?”
Answering the question, the Uber CEO who was hired less than a year ago, sounded very confident about their position in India, Middle East & Africa. He went on to say that Uber will come out as winning player in all those markets.
“We sold in Southeast Asia. [But] we are in a position to win in every market that we’re in. Part of the reason we sold in Southeast Asia is one, we believe in Grab and Anthony who runs that business, but we wanted to have enough dry powder to win in everywhere we’re in, and I think we’re in that position,” said Dara Khosrowshahi. “India, Middle East, Africa etc, we are going to be, I believe, the winning player in those markets and we’re going to control our own destiny.”
He also said that the company is having discussions with Google’s Waymo to put their autonomous cars into Uber’s network.
“Just like Amazon sells third-party goods, we are going to also offer third-party transportation services. So, we wanna kinda be the Amazon for transportation.”
A little more than a month ago Uber’s COO, speaking with CNBC had also said that the company has no plans to leave Middle East & North Africa.
This means both Uber & Careem will continue to burn money in subsidies for their drivers and riders to try and get bigger piece of the pie. And that is precisely why Careem is reportedly trying to raise another $500 million.
Featured image via Recode.
