Uber is number one among global ride-sharing firms
US-BASED Uber is the clear global ride-sharing market leader, with China’s Didi Chuxing a distant second, and Southeast Asian upstart Grab pushing
In a recent competitive assessment, ABI Research analyzed and compared the strength of the current leading ridesharing providers worldwide through an analysis of their market share, innovation programs, strategies, and geographical reach.
Ride-sharing services have grown at breakneck speeds over the past decade as an increasing number of people are using these services and bypassing conventional taxi services and other forms of public transport, ABI noted.
“Although important, there is much more to future ride-sharing success than user-base numbers and current market share,” said Shiv Patel, research analyst at ABI Research.
“What is also important is investing in innovation, developing other on-demand services and other non-vehicle ride-sharing modes, and building out the overall mobility platform. These combined with the development of driverless ridesharing will, in fact, be the key to success in any future mobility-as-service market.”
In terms of implementation of a true, global ride-sharing service, Uber was at the forefront of global development, having implemented its ride- sharing services in over 70 countries — more than twice the number of countries of the next best company.
Uber also scored within the top three in the remaining implementation categories; Monthly Active Users (MAU) Average Net Revenue Per User (ARPU), and Customer Satisfaction.
Didi Chuxing, despite having a large 52% global market share due to its dominance in the large Chinese ridesharing market, was found to be slow in expanding their global reach, impacting its overall implementation score.
Where Uber really leads the market is in innovation. Uber has been at the forefront of innovation in the ride-sharing industry since its inception in 2011, through its development of the surgedemand pricing model, its application of trip optimization techniques, and its development of in-house driverless services.
A mix of these competencies will be essential to unlocking future mobilityas-a-service business models, which will be paramount to the long-term survival of ride-sharing services.
Grab ranked in third place. The company established itself with the third largest market share, behind Didi Chuxing and Uber and its high ranking was further helped by its commitment to developing its ride-sharing service and other on-demand services.
The company was found to offer the second most amount of vehicle options to consumers, after Uber, as well as offering other on-demand services such as parcel and food delivery.
Narrowly behind Grab, ranked Lyft in fourth place. Lyft was found to be a highly respected service among users, averaging the highest ARPU amongst all ride-sharing providers, $167 per monthly active user as well as having the highest customer satisfaction.
Overall, the results showed that Uber is still the clear global ride-sharing market leader. However, there are numerous players such as Didi Chuxing, Grab, Lyft, Careem, and others that have clearly wellestablished regional services.
lagged Uber was in their global scale and investment in innovation, which will be key for success in future MaaS models, said ABI.
“However, with the right partnerships and investment, these companies could yet establish themselves as global players as well as develop the technology that will enable them to establish themselves in the future mobility-as-a-service market,”