The concept of “roaming” has evolved from phone services to ATM cash withdrawals. Now, a partnership similar to the airline industry’s Star Alliance is bringing global roaming to ride-hailing apps that were once limited to specific regions.
Didi Kuaidi, GrabTaxi, Lyft, and Ola have expanded their initial ride-sharing agreement, first established between Lyft and Didi Kuaidi in September. This expanded partnership now encompasses a significant portion of the world’s population, covering nearly all of Southeast Asia, India, China, and the United States. The rollout of joint products is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2016.
Through this global collaboration, the companies aim to provide international travelers with a seamless ride-hailing experience. By utilizing each other’s technology, local market expertise, and business resources, travelers will be able to book rides using their familiar app even when abroad. Each company will manage mapping, routing, and payments through a secure API, ensuring a consistent global experience for their users.
Didi Kuaidi, GrabTaxi, and Ola, as leaders in their respective markets, will offer Lyft passengers traveling to Asia a reliable, convenient, and user-friendly experience. Each of these companies experienced significant growth in 2015:
Didi Kuaidi, the world’s largest mobile transportation platform, provides 7 million rides daily across 360 cities in China. It holds an 83% market share in private car-hailing and maintains a dominant position in other services like taxi-hailing, bus transportation, and corporate services.
GrabTaxi is Southeast Asia’s leading ride-hailing platform, boasting a 95% market share in third-party taxi-hailing and over 50% in private cars. With 1.5 million daily bookings across six countries, GrabTaxi offers a variety of options through its app, including taxis, motorcycle taxis, private cars, carpooling, and delivery services.
Lyft, the fastest-growing ride-sharing service in the US, completes 7 million rides monthly in over 190 cities. As of October, Lyft achieved an annual gross run rate of US$1 billion and secured over 40% market share in San Francisco, California, and Austin, Texas.
Ola, India’s most popular mobile platform for personal transportation, operates in 102 cities nationwide. With more than 350,000 vehicles registered on its platform, Ola processes over a million booking requests per day.
Cheng Wei, CEO of Didi Kuaidi, stated that Didi’s focus has shifted towards leveraging its vast data resources to drive product innovation and enhance user experience. He believes the partnership with Lyft, GrabTaxi, and Ola will not only simplify international travel for Chinese users but also allow each company to learn from one another’s technological expertise and enhance their services.
Anthony Tan, CEO of GrabTaxi, expressed enthusiasm for supporting Didi, Lyft, and Ola in Southeast Asia, acknowledging the region’s diverse cultural and linguistic landscape. He emphasized the shared vision of the four companies to improve the lives of both drivers and passengers while addressing long-term transportation challenges.
Lyft co-founder and President John Zimmer expressed excitement about simplifying global travel for passengers through this collaboration. He views the partnership as a way to provide extensive global coverage while advancing their shared goal of fostering stronger communities through improved transportation.
Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO of Ola, expressed enthusiasm about partnering with Lyft, Didi Kuaidi, and GrabTaxi. He highlighted the partnership’s potential to offer seamless mobility across numerous cities globally for their combined user base of hundreds of millions. Aggarwal believes this collaboration will enable all four companies to share their local innovations and successes, ultimately contributing to their shared mission of developing superior mobility solutions in their respective markets.