https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/uber
> Total Funding Amount: $21.7B
The real question is how companies thought it was a great idea to invest in them to the tune of $21.7B.
> Total Funding Amount: $21.7B
The real question is how companies thought it was a great idea to invest in them to the tune of $21.7B.
Some people claim that there is a barrier to entry which is that "Uber has all the drivers". However every big city I go you see local players. Not only Lyft and Yandex, but regular cabs, or regular cabs dispatched by an app (as opposed to telephone) etc.
No barrier to entry.
Sri Lanka launched it's own (privately owned) ride hailing/sharing app ahead of Uber entering our market. A lot of drivers work with both companies, but Uber is being squeezed out bit by bit. There's a lot of money in the local player to be sure, but even then, it's crazy to think that the giant international player couldn't take on our local market all that well.
This is despite the local player doing all the hard work of training the market to understand how this concept works. Both drivers and riders needed significant investment. Uber came into a primed market and failed to capture it despite burning money on ridiculous bonuses for drivers at the start.
Recent sales in Asia prove this inability to capture localised markets is not a one off.
Reminds me of another company with no barrier to entry, Coke. It’s massive profits led Sam awaiting to spend millions creating Sams Cola, which crushed Coke in taste tests and got massive distribution from the get-go. And utterly failed.
If you can understand the massive barriers to entry Coke really had, you’ll begin to understand how massive Uber’s competitive barriers are.
Uber’s moat is built on its brand as well, not just the massive awareness of their services, but the fact so many people have their app, and they have the most drivers. More drivers makes the customer experience that much better.
Just looking at app installs, it will take Lyft years and will cost hundreds of millions just to catch Uber in US app installs.
Sidenote on barriers to entry: one of the original meanings of "disruption" was the tearing down of barriers to allow new entry and competition in a field. Ubers steamrolling of medallion schemes constitutes such a kind of "disruption". Of course, once disrupted, there's no closing the door behind you.
Are you confusing America for the world? Uber's position is not massively dominant in Europe, and they've pulled out of SE Asia with their tail between their legs because of a competitor.