8 ms·

What Uber Left Behind in Asia

73 points by wintercarver 7y ago

wintercarver 7y ago
Is anyone aware of recent arguments and discussions on the topic of superapps in western markets? I was curious about this after reading the above article, but a quick google only surfaced articles with not-too-compelling arguments[1]. FB trying to merge many messaging apps seems similar, but for only one service (messaging), and Uber has a credit card, Eats, and transport but they are more of an app constellation than a super app (perhaps a super app from the driver side, but am curious about consumer case in western markets). [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/michelleevans1/2018/03/21/four-reasons-why-super-apps-like-wechat-would-struggle-in-the-us/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/michelleev...
- whoevercares 7y ago
  It might be influenced by WeChat that by design supports everything and yet still expose a simplistic interface. FB might redesign in such a way? Privacy issues aside, it’s hard to design a complex super app with minimalistic and low distraction UX. I haven’t seen western app that achieved the same yet. Might be related to the fact Wechat is designed for mobile only and so optimized to be free of any internet age red herrings? For example it was mind blowing when I figured out I have to install separate apps for FB & it’s messenger
- ShorsHammer 7y ago
  It's strange how prevalent these things are in Asia and yet non-existent in the West. Whatsapp is only just now jumping on the payments bandwagon. Were it not for how crappy Chinese banking is and the difficulty onboarding they easily could have been outmanoeuvred here. I guess the popularity of QR payments in the East also helps too. Wechat pay is quite popular even outside of China, seen some tiny mom and pop stores in rural Thailand/Malaysia accepting it. I've spoken to Chinese tourists who say they barely bother carrying cash to most cities in SEA.
  - moltar 7y ago
    Alipay is all over the place in Thailand.
    - ShorsHammer 7y ago
      Yep, them too. They could have dominated the region were it opened to international payments, but seems like typical stubborn government getting in the way, doubt tencent or alibaba are holding it back. Even for foreigners with work permits in China it's apparently incredibly hard to link foreign accounts with these payments systems. Works great for the Chinese, not so much anyone else. They really dropped the ball on that. I see local alternatives springing up all around the place. Grab probably will win out in South East Asia. I'm quite used to contactless payments in Australia but work over there a lot and going back to card + pin is painful. I'd happily use the QR code payments given the chance but legacy banking is struggling to adapt.
      - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        QR is a poor substitute for contactless. America has screwed up their chips, however, making even contactless pay too slow, I can't imagine QR codes would improve anything unless the money was onloaded somehow (like how it works at Starbucks).
        eropple 7y ago
        American EMV has some dumb decisions baked in, but as far as speed goes it's not the chips, it's the existing in-store backend processors. A lot of them are over slow and unreliable connections (GPRS is super-common, as are phone lines shared by many points of sale). As processors are forced to upgrade, Americans are seeing faster chip transactions. Companies that prioritize this--Walgreens comes to mind as an obvious example--have chip auth under ten seconds. It isn't optimal, but it's improving.
        seanmcdirmid 7y ago
- rock_hard 7y ago
  One has to understand what the drivers for super apps are first. The reason they do well in China is that: 1. Most users use android and there is no reliable & trustworthy single popular App Store. 2. So people at scale rely on the apps that came preinstalled. WeChat famously is! 3. Since it’s hard to get people to install new apps, devs through all products into their one app that has distribution In the west the preconditions are very different, hence there is no force driving this behavior.
  - AFascistWorld 7y ago
    I think it's differrent internet culture and demographics, what is a computer or smartphone? To average people it could just be that app, QQ or Wechat, using a smartphone is using Wechat. Computers appear in China relatively late, for young people, they'd rather have a smartohone than a computer. And lastly, user experience, apps in the west need to mind the laws and media, but in China tech companies basically can do whatever they want, so it's always the race to the bottom coz that's where the winner will be. So you have Wechat filled to brim with hawkers/salesmen/marketers with unfettered false ads, its "self-media" platform feeding people the most eye-catching junk articles. User experience doesn't mean much when the popualation is so big they can just lock as many people on their apps as quick as possible, then the picky ones are forced to deal with it as it's a "superapp" - everybody is using it and they are not going to change. So there you have it, the superapp experience: your boss and coworkers messaging you at night and weekends; the local police where you rent your room asking you to register ID and verify face on their Wechat applet; your acquaintances and parents sharing the latest self-media top story about stoping drinking coffee immediately coz Americans found it's carcinogenic.
- KabuseCha 7y ago
  I enjoyed reading this article on the topic of Google Maps potentially evolving into the next super app: https://skift.com/2019/04/16/google-maps-is-ready-to-transform-the-world-of-superapps-a-skift-deep-dive/ https://skift.com/2019/04/16/google-maps-is-ready-to-transfo... Most of the author's arguments are compelling, but I am very skeptical if any app in the west will ever reach super app status. Regulators are already considering actions against FANG, although, if compared to Tencent, neither Google's or Facebook's positions in the market seem that threatening at all ... Building a "real" super app might actually be dangerous for any company int the west.
- spbaar 7y ago
  Could Snapchat be something close? I don't know all the features, but it had games, a social geo map, commercial published content, and personal social content. Although the only third party integration is for filter and ad creatives, it "feels" like it might go there someday.
Gys 7y ago
Great ‘demo’ of how Gojek sees their future: https://www.gojek.io/superapp/ https://www.gojek.io/superapp/
- tdmule 7y ago
  The style of the art on that page is similar to HBO's Silicon Valley opening[1]. Until I scrolled down I thought the page might be some sort of satire. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m2j_0ivw2I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m2j_0ivw2I
- ambicapter 7y ago
  Wow I know I'm not the only one but this is the first time a web page has literally pegged my CPU. It even created audio artifacts in the music I was listening to at the time.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Wow, those animations range from cheesy to total mindfuck.
- jpatokal 7y ago
  Did a bit of a double-take when I saw the large "18+" image: apparently this is a reference to having "18+ products", but that's not what "18+" means in much of Asia.
plinkplonk 7y ago
Uber still has a stake in Grab iirc. That might work out better than competing directly in SE Asia.
- jeffbax 7y ago
  Same with Didi in China, not sure about the Russian ride shares though
arnvald 7y ago
The author forgot to mention that Uber hasn't just left South-East Asia. It was officially acquired by Grab and got 27.5% stake in Grab in exchange[0] Before leaving the market, Uber had a really intensive price war with Grab (for a few months I was getting SG$5 discounts for 5 rides a week by each company). While one might argue that they could have stayed longer and expand their application into a super-app (like Gojek, ICBC or Wechat), it seems they preferred to instead invest in a local company that knows that market better. I think it's still too early to say whether it was a good decision, and definitely too early to say whether it was a mistake. [0] https://thenextweb.com/asia/2018/03/26/ubers-southeast-asia-operations-acquired-by-grab/ https://thenextweb.com/asia/2018/03/26/ubers-southeast-asia-...
- m3nu 7y ago
  Softbank is invested in both – Grab and Uber. They weren't keen on losing money by competing against themselves.[1] So it wasn't 100% up to Uber to quit and take this stake. 1: http://fortune.com/2018/03/12/data-sheet-uber-softbank-grab/ http://fortune.com/2018/03/12/data-sheet-uber-softbank-grab/
  - Traster 7y ago
    Which really opens up questions into monopoly rules where a single entity owns significant stakes in all the biggest players in the market and can intervene to stop legitimate competition.
    - steve19 7y ago
      Matt Levine addresses this quite often and has been for years. Hedge funds often own some of all competitors in a market. There might one day be anti trust issues with this. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/articles/2016-04-04/shareholder-activism-might-have-antitrust-issues https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/a... (apologies for the amp link)
    - chanux 7y ago
      The authorities did find the deal to be anti-competitive https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/competition-watchdog-finds-grab-uber-deal-anti-competitive-lists-corrective https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/competition...
Invictus0 7y ago
Neither of those apps are profitable yet. Even if there was a huge opportunity there, Uber didn't have the cultural understanding necessary to execute well, and didn't have the funds to fight a global war of attrition with every other ride-hailing company.
- rightbyte 7y ago
  Uber being a money sink is the biggest VC joke ever. I can't understand how they are losing that much money while having no car expenses, providing an app, customer support and some certification service for the drivers. Their developer and RnD departments has to be way too bloated and the ambitions way too high.
rjf72 7y ago
Comparing multiples of minimum wage is one of the worst imaginable metrics because minimum wages mean very different things in different countries. The US minimum wage, relative to many less developed nations (which are all that is compared), is extremely high in terms of the purchasing power it provides. For instance the article mentions that in South Africa drivers earn 5.1x the minimum wage. But what does that mean? Well we can figure it out pretty easily! The recommended minimum wage in South Africa is $173 per month. Of course things are cheaper in South Africa, so that doesn't tell you anything by itself. But we can use Purchasing Power Parity measurements to make it mean something! South Africa's PPP is 0.455 [1]. What that means is that a basket of goods worth $1 in America would cost $0.455 in South Africa. So we now can use about a 2.2x multipler to start ballparking buying power. So 5.1x the minimum wage works out to 173 * 5.1 * 2.2 = $1,941 in US dollar equivalent purchasing power per month. Now let's assume full time work of a basic 40 hour week to get this into an hourly rate. $1,941 / 160 = $12.13. Lo and behold, their "5.1x the minimum wage" works out to almost an identical market rate for drivers as in the US. They earn about $0.20 less per hour, in adjusted spending power, than they'd earn in the US. Whenever a datum leaves you wondering what it really means, it's often one that's been chosen to present a sensationalized image to what's often a pretty boring reality. [1] - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/PA.NUS.PPPC.RF?locations=ZA https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/PA.NUS.PPPC.RF?location...
- temp20160423 7y ago
  I think the key reason to present min wage vs ridesharing wage is to ask how much pressure is there to raise wages for drivers. The article presents some data that wages for drivers in these countries is high relative to other jobs (or no previous job in many cases). Uber/lyft are in trouble in USA because even though the pay is not much higher than min wage, people keep demanding that uber/lyft pay their drivers higher.
companyhen 7y ago
Living in SEA, I really enjoyed having the option of both Uber and Grab as it was easy to compare prices, and sometimes get a taxi for cheaper. Now I use Grab as a price gauge and usually haggle a taxi for lower if he doesn't want to use a meter. Can usually always get a taxi cheaper, GrabBike is the only thing that beats it.
miguelrochefort 7y ago
The go-to transportation method differs across Southeast-Asian countries. Thailand: Grab (car) Cambodia: Pass (tuk Tuk) Vietnam: Grab (motorbike) Indonesia: Go-Jek (bike) Singapore: Grab (car) Every few months, a new competitor seems to pop-up in every major city.
- 3131s 7y ago
  Grab is getting bigger in Cambodia, but PassApp still has a bit more name recognition since they were here first.
runn1ng 7y ago
Shameless corporate plug: I am a Grab engineer, we are hiring like crazy right now. We hire engineers in USA (Bellevue WA and Seattle), China (Beijing), Singapore, Vietnam (HCM City), Indonesia (Jakarta), India (Bangalore) and I probably forgot some. See https://grab.careers https://grab.careers

73 points by wintercarver 7y ago

Is anyone aware of recent arguments and discussions on the topic of superapps in western markets? I was curious about this after reading the above article, but a quick google only surfaced articles with not-too-compelling arguments[1]. FB trying to merge many messaging apps seems similar, but for only one service (messaging), and Uber has a credit card, Eats, and transport but they are more of an app constellation than a super app (perhaps a super app from the driver side, but am curious about consumer case in western markets). [1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/michelleevans1/2018/03/21/four-reasons-why-super-apps-like-wechat-would-struggle-in-the-us/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/michelleev...

whoevercares 7y ago
It might be influenced by WeChat that by design supports everything and yet still expose a simplistic interface. FB might redesign in such a way? Privacy issues aside, it’s hard to design a complex super app with minimalistic and low distraction UX. I haven’t seen western app that achieved the same yet. Might be related to the fact Wechat is designed for mobile only and so optimized to be free of any internet age red herrings? For example it was mind blowing when I figured out I have to install separate apps for FB & it’s messenger
ShorsHammer 7y ago
It's strange how prevalent these things are in Asia and yet non-existent in the West. Whatsapp is only just now jumping on the payments bandwagon. Were it not for how crappy Chinese banking is and the difficulty onboarding they easily could have been outmanoeuvred here. I guess the popularity of QR payments in the East also helps too. Wechat pay is quite popular even outside of China, seen some tiny mom and pop stores in rural Thailand/Malaysia accepting it. I've spoken to Chinese tourists who say they barely bother carrying cash to most cities in SEA.
- moltar 7y ago
  Alipay is all over the place in Thailand.
  - ShorsHammer 7y ago
    Yep, them too. They could have dominated the region were it opened to international payments, but seems like typical stubborn government getting in the way, doubt tencent or alibaba are holding it back. Even for foreigners with work permits in China it's apparently incredibly hard to link foreign accounts with these payments systems. Works great for the Chinese, not so much anyone else. They really dropped the ball on that. I see local alternatives springing up all around the place. Grab probably will win out in South East Asia. I'm quite used to contactless payments in Australia but work over there a lot and going back to card + pin is painful. I'd happily use the QR code payments given the chance but legacy banking is struggling to adapt.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      QR is a poor substitute for contactless. America has screwed up their chips, however, making even contactless pay too slow, I can't imagine QR codes would improve anything unless the money was onloaded somehow (like how it works at Starbucks).
      - eropple 7y ago
        American EMV has some dumb decisions baked in, but as far as speed goes it's not the chips, it's the existing in-store backend processors. A lot of them are over slow and unreliable connections (GPRS is super-common, as are phone lines shared by many points of sale). As processors are forced to upgrade, Americans are seeing faster chip transactions. Companies that prioritize this--Walgreens comes to mind as an obvious example--have chip auth under ten seconds. It isn't optimal, but it's improving.
        seanmcdirmid 7y ago
rock_hard 7y ago
One has to understand what the drivers for super apps are first. The reason they do well in China is that: 1. Most users use android and there is no reliable & trustworthy single popular App Store. 2. So people at scale rely on the apps that came preinstalled. WeChat famously is! 3. Since it’s hard to get people to install new apps, devs through all products into their one app that has distribution In the west the preconditions are very different, hence there is no force driving this behavior.
- AFascistWorld 7y ago
  I think it's differrent internet culture and demographics, what is a computer or smartphone? To average people it could just be that app, QQ or Wechat, using a smartphone is using Wechat. Computers appear in China relatively late, for young people, they'd rather have a smartohone than a computer. And lastly, user experience, apps in the west need to mind the laws and media, but in China tech companies basically can do whatever they want, so it's always the race to the bottom coz that's where the winner will be. So you have Wechat filled to brim with hawkers/salesmen/marketers with unfettered false ads, its "self-media" platform feeding people the most eye-catching junk articles. User experience doesn't mean much when the popualation is so big they can just lock as many people on their apps as quick as possible, then the picky ones are forced to deal with it as it's a "superapp" - everybody is using it and they are not going to change. So there you have it, the superapp experience: your boss and coworkers messaging you at night and weekends; the local police where you rent your room asking you to register ID and verify face on their Wechat applet; your acquaintances and parents sharing the latest self-media top story about stoping drinking coffee immediately coz Americans found it's carcinogenic.
KabuseCha 7y ago
I enjoyed reading this article on the topic of Google Maps potentially evolving into the next super app: https://skift.com/2019/04/16/google-maps-is-ready-to-transform-the-world-of-superapps-a-skift-deep-dive/ https://skift.com/2019/04/16/google-maps-is-ready-to-transfo... Most of the author's arguments are compelling, but I am very skeptical if any app in the west will ever reach super app status. Regulators are already considering actions against FANG, although, if compared to Tencent, neither Google's or Facebook's positions in the market seem that threatening at all ... Building a "real" super app might actually be dangerous for any company int the west.
spbaar 7y ago
Could Snapchat be something close? I don't know all the features, but it had games, a social geo map, commercial published content, and personal social content. Although the only third party integration is for filter and ad creatives, it "feels" like it might go there someday.

Gys 7y ago

Great ‘demo’ of how Gojek sees their future: https://www.gojek.io/superapp/ https://www.gojek.io/superapp/

tdmule 7y ago
The style of the art on that page is similar to HBO's Silicon Valley opening[1]. Until I scrolled down I thought the page might be some sort of satire. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m2j_0ivw2I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m2j_0ivw2I
ambicapter 7y ago
Wow I know I'm not the only one but this is the first time a web page has literally pegged my CPU. It even created audio artifacts in the music I was listening to at the time.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Wow, those animations range from cheesy to total mindfuck.
jpatokal 7y ago
Did a bit of a double-take when I saw the large "18+" image: apparently this is a reference to having "18+ products", but that's not what "18+" means in much of Asia.

plinkplonk 7y ago

Uber still has a stake in Grab iirc. That might work out better than competing directly in SE Asia.

jeffbax 7y ago
Same with Didi in China, not sure about the Russian ride shares though

arnvald 7y ago

The author forgot to mention that Uber hasn't just left South-East Asia. It was officially acquired by Grab and got 27.5% stake in Grab in exchange[0] Before leaving the market, Uber had a really intensive price war with Grab (for a few months I was getting SG$5 discounts for 5 rides a week by each company). While one might argue that they could have stayed longer and expand their application into a super-app (like Gojek, ICBC or Wechat), it seems they preferred to instead invest in a local company that knows that market better. I think it's still too early to say whether it was a good decision, and definitely too early to say whether it was a mistake. [0] https://thenextweb.com/asia/2018/03/26/ubers-southeast-asia-operations-acquired-by-grab/ https://thenextweb.com/asia/2018/03/26/ubers-southeast-asia-...

m3nu 7y ago
Softbank is invested in both – Grab and Uber. They weren't keen on losing money by competing against themselves.[1] So it wasn't 100% up to Uber to quit and take this stake. 1: http://fortune.com/2018/03/12/data-sheet-uber-softbank-grab/ http://fortune.com/2018/03/12/data-sheet-uber-softbank-grab/
- Traster 7y ago
  Which really opens up questions into monopoly rules where a single entity owns significant stakes in all the biggest players in the market and can intervene to stop legitimate competition.
  - steve19 7y ago
    Matt Levine addresses this quite often and has been for years. Hedge funds often own some of all competitors in a market. There might one day be anti trust issues with this. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/articles/2016-04-04/shareholder-activism-might-have-antitrust-issues https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/opinion/a... (apologies for the amp link)
  - chanux 7y ago
    The authorities did find the deal to be anti-competitive https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/competition-watchdog-finds-grab-uber-deal-anti-competitive-lists-corrective https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/transport/competition...

Invictus0 7y ago

Neither of those apps are profitable yet. Even if there was a huge opportunity there, Uber didn't have the cultural understanding necessary to execute well, and didn't have the funds to fight a global war of attrition with every other ride-hailing company.

rightbyte 7y ago
Uber being a money sink is the biggest VC joke ever. I can't understand how they are losing that much money while having no car expenses, providing an app, customer support and some certification service for the drivers. Their developer and RnD departments has to be way too bloated and the ambitions way too high.

rjf72 7y ago

Comparing multiples of minimum wage is one of the worst imaginable metrics because minimum wages mean very different things in different countries. The US minimum wage, relative to many less developed nations (which are all that is compared), is extremely high in terms of the purchasing power it provides. For instance the article mentions that in South Africa drivers earn 5.1x the minimum wage. But what does that mean? Well we can figure it out pretty easily! The recommended minimum wage in South Africa is $173 per month. Of course things are cheaper in South Africa, so that doesn't tell you anything by itself. But we can use Purchasing Power Parity measurements to make it mean something! South Africa's PPP is 0.455 [1]. What that means is that a basket of goods worth $1 in America would cost $0.455 in South Africa. So we now can use about a 2.2x multipler to start ballparking buying power. So 5.1x the minimum wage works out to 173 * 5.1 * 2.2 = $1,941 in US dollar equivalent purchasing power per month. Now let's assume full time work of a basic 40 hour week to get this into an hourly rate. $1,941 / 160 = $12.13. Lo and behold, their "5.1x the minimum wage" works out to almost an identical market rate for drivers as in the US. They earn about $0.20 less per hour, in adjusted spending power, than they'd earn in the US. Whenever a datum leaves you wondering what it really means, it's often one that's been chosen to present a sensationalized image to what's often a pretty boring reality. [1] - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/PA.NUS.PPPC.RF?locations=ZA https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/PA.NUS.PPPC.RF?location...

temp20160423 7y ago
I think the key reason to present min wage vs ridesharing wage is to ask how much pressure is there to raise wages for drivers. The article presents some data that wages for drivers in these countries is high relative to other jobs (or no previous job in many cases). Uber/lyft are in trouble in USA because even though the pay is not much higher than min wage, people keep demanding that uber/lyft pay their drivers higher.

companyhen 7y ago

Living in SEA, I really enjoyed having the option of both Uber and Grab as it was easy to compare prices, and sometimes get a taxi for cheaper. Now I use Grab as a price gauge and usually haggle a taxi for lower if he doesn't want to use a meter. Can usually always get a taxi cheaper, GrabBike is the only thing that beats it.

miguelrochefort 7y ago

The go-to transportation method differs across Southeast-Asian countries. Thailand: Grab (car) Cambodia: Pass (tuk Tuk) Vietnam: Grab (motorbike) Indonesia: Go-Jek (bike) Singapore: Grab (car) Every few months, a new competitor seems to pop-up in every major city.

3131s 7y ago
Grab is getting bigger in Cambodia, but PassApp still has a bit more name recognition since they were here first.

runn1ng 7y ago

Shameless corporate plug: I am a Grab engineer, we are hiring like crazy right now. We hire engineers in USA (Bellevue WA and Seattle), China (Beijing), Singapore, Vietnam (HCM City), Indonesia (Jakarta), India (Bangalore) and I probably forgot some. See https://grab.careers https://grab.careers