3 market predictions for 2024 in mobility:

  1. Profitability or begone

  2. Going Public

  3. The West will sort gig-economy 

Profitability or begone : By the end of 2024, investors and “the market” will demand mobility & delivery companies to be quarterly profitable at a real EBITDA, with a roadmap for bottom line profitability. 

Profitability replaced growth, and has been the talk all through 2023, but most players only managed to achieve adjusted-EBITDA profitability, or play accounting games to get there. The year 2024 will separate the winners from losers, the acquirers from the acquired, the IPOs from those declaring chapter 11 or going into administration. 

This is true for most forms of mobility - from ride-hailing to on-demand transport, shared cars to scooters, and delivery services of all shapes and forms. Excluded are autonomous cars, eVTOLs and delivery drones & bots, all tech-rich with markets in early stages, which will continue focusing on growth, albeit at a smaller spend than in 2019-2021. 

Going Public: prominent names to go public in 2024 are Ola Electric (already in motion), Lime, Turo, Bolt, Via, Swiggy, Line Man Wongnai, and Blablacar, amongst others. While some will SPAC, most will IPO. 

Mobility companies are going to IPO, preferably not SPAC, as companies achieve profitability, interest rates lower and VCs pull(ed) the plug on additional funding. SPACing will remain an option to be used, but SPACs have gained a bad reputation, so most of the big names will return to the traditional IPO route to market. 

A key factor in IPOing is the stock price the day after. From TMNT’s mobility index we learn that mobility stocks have been underperforming the S&P 500, but most of the underperformance is attributed to 2022. In 2023, mobility stocks went up and down - but overall without meaningful change (see graph). “Good” companies saw their stock going up (Uber +141%, Archer +214%), so companies achieving profitability or having a good outlook should feel comfortable with an IPO.  

The West will sort gig-employment: in the Western world, i.e. In Europe and North America, legislators and/or courts are going to finally deal, and decide, on gig-employment definition and social benefits. Expect a price increase on ride-hailing & on delivery services. 

Past years have seen increasing action from legislators to define gig-employment, mostly to the unliking of gig-economy companies. In Europe, a recent EU directive to define gig-employment was unsuccessful and will return to negotiations, but on a country level more progress has been achieved. For example, in the UK the courts ruled that gig-employees are “workers”, a legal status; in France, ride-hailing companies negotiated with unions on pay; Spain uses a set of parameters to define the difference between gig-employment and employees. 

The US has seen increasing debate and actions. California’s AB5 and proposition 22 kicked-off the employment debate, and since then we've seen similar efforts in Minneapolis (ride-hailing won) and recently in New York, where delivery-companies failed to stop a new government minimum wage scheme. 

This year will see many more “western” countries move toward decisions, as precedents are adding up and courts are asked again and again to deal with the issue. This will mean increased costs for gig-platforms, which will find their way to customers. 

This is true only for the developed world - expect the developing world to keep undefined, with governments leaving it to market forces.