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Uber FY24 positive, Waabi plus Volvo, GM minus Cruise and tariffs
This week on #movingpeople
Barak Sas
February 10, 2025
#movingpeople is a part of Mobility Business - a consultancy dedicated to "All Things Mobility", focused on growth.
Ride-Hailing & Taxi, Buses & DRT 🚙🚐
Uber published its 2024 results and key takeaways are:
Trips grew by 19% YoY to 11.27 billion
Gross booking up 18% to $162.7 billion
Revenue also up 18% to $44 billion
Revenue / gross booking margin: 27%, same as in 2023 (across all products and geos)
Adjusted EBITDA and FCF profitable
Mobility is 51.6% of total gross bookings and 57.8% of total revenue; mobility revenue margin grew from 28.7% in 2023 to 30.3% in 2024
Delivery is 45.5% of gross bookings and 31.5% of revenue; delivery revenue margin grew from 18.3% in 2023 to 18.7% in 2024
Uber stock initially went down due to analysts’ fears of currency headwinds, softener US ride-hailing demand and etc. etc. - that is until Bill Ackman started buying $2.3 billion worth of Uber shares because he thinks Uber is “massively discounted” - and the stock shot up.
For Uber’s 2024 8-K financial results visit here and for my Uber’s 2023 analysis - visit here.
Grab is in talks to acquire GoTo, parent company of Gojek, for a reported over $7 billion, in a deal that, if goes forward, is certain to be a major antitrust hurdle. The two companies, leading the South-East Asia ride-hailing and delivery market, are both unprofitable. GoTo denies reports, but this is definitely not the first time the two companies try to combine forces.
Most downloaded apps, courtesy of InDrive.
Note the dominance of Google - with Maps #1 and Waze #4
Rapido, #10 in travel, is a ride (bike) hailing app, which should be at the ride-hailing top 10
InDrive operates in 48 countries across 888 cities. The app was downloaded over 6.1 million times in just the month of December 2024
Uber News
Uber customers in Austin can now register interest to ride Waymo’s robotaxi; service to be launched next month.
🇭🇰 HKTaxi, Hong Kong, shuts down and encourages users to transition to Uber, its parent platform; HKTaxi was acquired by Uber back in 2021. This move raises concern of Uber’s monopolistic position in Hong Kong.
🇨🇦 Uber vs. Calgary - the company complained to the privacy commissioner against the city’s decision to mandate ride-hailing companies to share ride data with the city. Another decision by the city shifts the rider & driver complaints process to 311, and not through the ride-hailing app. In Calgary, ride-hailing is 80% of the market (taxi 20%).
Uber Ski, with vans to carry equipment.
Lyft extends Price Lock feature to “around the clock”.
Lyft is working with Anthropic to create AI solutions across the business. Already today, Lyft uses Anthropic’s Claude AI for customer service, and says it reduces the average driver resolution time for a request by 87%.
🇵🇭 Lalamove to launch RIDE business in the Philippines on February 10th, after launching in Malaysia in November 2024.
🇨🇴 Yango partners with Taxis Libres in Colombia. Yango is active in five different cities in Colombia, and with this partnership - Taxis Libres has 25.000 vehicles - now enters Bogota.
🇳🇬 In Nigeria, Bolt cuts fares by 50% and drivers aren’t pleased. Uber and InDrive have been lowering fares as well, at a lower pace. The fare reductions have to do with the country’s declining purchasing power and players wish to incentivise demand.
🇳🇱 Umob won the Municipality of Rotterdam tender to operate shared mobility in the suburban areas of the city. Residents will be given €100 in credit to experiment with shared mobility.
🇬🇧 OUNO develops new booking kiosks, rolling it first at ExCeL London exhibition centre.
🇺🇿 Yandex Go launches goods delivery service in Navoi, Uzbekistan.
🇻🇳 Increasing competition in Vietnam drops Vinasun’s 2024 net profit to drop by 45%.
Bolt launched Bolt Business - a corporate ground mobility solution, from cars to scooters. Bolt Business allows you to book for employees, customers and partners, offering app and web booking, scheduled rides, control over spending limits, emission offsetting and automated reports on usage, costs and sustainability.
Check it out via this link - I have a coupon good for 25% off 20 rides - just type in “BB25OFF20” when registering.
Car Sharing/renting 🚗
🇳🇱 CHECK, Netherlands shared cars and mopeds, 2024 numbers:
Revenue of almost €18M
EBITDA €1.8M and EBIT of €1.4M
75% market share in the moped segment
More than 4.2 million rides and a total distance of 12.2 million kilometers - that comes out to a simple average of €4.28 per ride or €1.47 per km.
🇨🇦 Communauto increases fees, due to increasing vehicle price and insurance costs.
🇭🇺 In Hungary, GreenGo, wigo and MOL Limo lead the car sharing market. Main challenges are switching to electric and parking.
Micromobility 🚲🛴
Trump’s tariffs should have a profound impact on the micromobility market. For now”only” a 10% tariff on Chinese imports, China dominates the e-bike and e-scooter production and spare parts market.
🇳🇴Oslo tender - Voi, Bolt and Ryde won. The 2-year tender will see the three companies operating 16,000 vehicles.
🇪🇸 Voi wins Barcelona shared bikes license.
🇬🇧 Voi now available in Northampton 24/7.
🇳🇿 Ario launched its scooters now in Christchurch
🇵🇭 Moover, Philippines, reached more than 1M rides in 2024.
Delivery 🍽🧺
Getir power struggle continues. Getir restructured in an agreement which left grocery operations under Mubadala, the largest shareholder; and non-core businesses with the founders. But Board control over changes to the plan continues; on Feb. 3rd the CEO, a person linked to Mubadala, was fired by the Board; by Feb. 6th the CEO was reinstated.
WeRide launches Robovan W5, its new cargo autonomous vehicle. L4 autonomy, 1,000kg payload, smart real-time route optimisation, including avoiding traffic. Will it find its way to Europe (exc. Switzerland) or will EU AV regulation continue to stifle innovation?
Gopuff uses Morrisons stores to fulfil online orders in a new trial, adding to its network of dark stores. Home Depot partners with Uber Eats & DoorDash for deliveries. Grubhub confirms a data breach which undisclosed a number of customers, merchants and delivery providers.
Autonomous & remote-driving 🤖℡
Waabi and Volvo partner to build self-driving trucks. The Waabi stack will be mounted on Volvo’s autonomous-geared truck, with an on-road product expected by the end of 2025 and soon after commercial deployment. Volvo is an existing investor in Waabi; Volvo also has a similar partnership with Aurora, from back in May 2024.
GM slashes Cruise’s workforce by 50% - circa 1,000 employees - as the independent AV unit shuts down and integrates into GM’s Super Cruise (ADAS) business. GM expects to save $1 billion annually from the move. Cruise is also notifying riders on its move:
Applied Autonomy acquired EpiSci, AI and autonomy software for national security, as Applied goes after the defense market. Applied has a history of acquiring and building on AV companies., acquiring AV trucking company Embark in May 2023 and Ghost Autonomy in October 2024.
Tier IV partners with Nihon Kotsu, Tokyo’s largest taxi company, to launch a large-scale data collection project aimed at enhancing generative AI for autonomous driving
OEMs 🛺⚡️
Tariffs.
A 25% tariff on products from Canada and Mexico is scheduled to go into effect in a month, unless a deal can be made between those countries and Trump’s US. All automakers will be affected.
Ford’s CEO says that those tariffs could cost the industry billions in profits — and raise car prices; he calls for a more comprehensive tariff strategy, one that will take vehicle importers from countries such as Japan and South Korea into account.
Polestar, a part of the Chinese Geely Group, is looking for new suppliers to replace existing Chinese part suppliers.
Tesla’s sales fall across Europe; saw sales drop by 60% in January in Germany. Why? Probably the introduction of the new Model Y and Musk’s (unwanted?) involvement in local European politics.
Nissan and Honda reportedly step back from their merger plans.
In other news 📰
Presto, “a stripe for EV charging”, raises $15M. The EV charger market is fragmented and full of challenges, and Presto is set to solve those for the drivers, starting with fleet drivers.
Omnitron Sensors raises $13M to create inexpensive sensors for self-driving cars.
Kwetta, an EV charging startup from New Zealand, raises $10.5M to tackle grid optimisation in the European market, to power up electric buses and trucks.
Rynse, fleet management software for government and enterprise organisations, raises $5M.
SWITCH, an AI start-up optimising urban mobility, raises €946,000 in pre-seed. SWITCH is focused on offering its customers AI tools to improve real-time fleet optimisation, demand forecasting, and strategic planning.
New MTA dashboard tracks vehicles entering congestion zone - to the tool.
All of Trump’s executive orders in one easy spreadsheet.
I love meeting new people, learning about innovation in mobility innovation and exchanging opinions. Let’s get-to-know / catch-up.
People 🧑🤝🧑
Emma Thomas is the new Regional Marketing Manager, EMEA @ Cubic Transportation Systems.
Gul Mukhey is the new Business Development Lead (Europe) @ Bolt.
José Ángel Valladar is the new Head of B2B Growth and Sales @ Real Automóvil Club de España - RACE.
Matan Block Temin is the new GM UK @ Evermile.
Congrats and good luck!
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