[prostoalex]

> In the fifth year you think you're gonna spend $6 and make $10. And now you're profitable.

In theory yes, but tracking the the progress of UberChina http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/18/uber-losing-1-billion-a-year-..., situation in Denmark or Spain, inability to win market share from established players in Russia, India or Malaysia introduce some real-world corrections to an otherwise ideal business plan.

[temp20160423]

You should read Brad Stone's The Upstarts. The outcome in China is actually pretty favorable for Uber. One-line summary: Travis (not Uber, but Travis) probably owns as much of Didi as the current founder/CEO of Didi. Didi is currently valued >$30B.

[_Codemonkeyism]

So good for Travis, bad for the investors in Uber? Nice move.

[dllthomas]

Uber owns way more.

From http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-uber-did...

> Uber will receive a 5.89% share of the combined entity with preferred equity interest, which is equal to a 17.7% economic interest in Didi Chuxing, the statement said.

[xseven]

> inability to win market share from established players in Russia, India or Malaysia

Any concrete data on this other than for news articles?

[prostoalex]

A good amount of companies operating in the space are private, guarding their financials as much as possible, so the field is not well covered by analysts, especially in emerging markets. I guess there's not enough incentive for an analyst, investment bank or brokerage house to pay for such research until someone in the field goes public. So unfortunately, we're restricted to random news articles.

Here's NYT on India https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/technology/uber-india.htm...

"On top of all this is competition. Uber faces an aggressive and well-funded Indian rival, Ola Cabs, which operates in 100 cities and offers a wider range of services than Uber does."

RT (okay, not the best source of non-fake news, but this is covering business and referring to a third-party report, so even with a grain of salt) https://www.rt.com/business/312513-yandex-taxi-uber-revenue/

"Russia's most popular search engine has not only beaten Google on its home turf, but has now left Uber in the dust in the Russian taxi market. The company has announced that its online-taxi services’ revenue has tripled in the second quarter of 2015. The Yandex.Taxi fleet has more than 15,000 vehicles in Moscow compared to 10,000 for its Israeli competitor Gett and America’s Uber with 3,000."

Analysis of Singapore market suggests that the playbook consisting of lowering the prices to undercut the taxi establishment works well in countries with expensive taxi services that limit medallions, not so well in countries with dirt-cheap and readily available taxi services http://sbr.com.sg/transport-logistics/news/sorry-uber-and-gr...

"the extremely high taxi penetration rate in Singapore means that it is less difficult for commuters to get a taxi in Singapore than in other cities, making it harder than elsewhere for Uber/Grab to get jobs for its drivers during off-peak hours."

[throwaway136]

In Singapore, you can also book taxi via Grab, we did so on our recent trip, meter/payment is still app based.

[icebraining]

Or maybe their market plan already included those potential misses.

[throwaway2048]

Or maybe it didn't?