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Didn't somebody do the math and came up with $40B for entire taxi business globally?
by msoad 11y ago
Didn't somebody do the math and came up with $40B for entire taxi business globally?
- wrsh07 11y agoThat's only relevant in a world where you assume Uber is limited to the taxi market.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- chralieboy 11y agoBefore Uber, I never took taxis. Now I use Uber 7-10 times per week. That's just one anecdote, but my business wouldn't be counted as Uber taking part of the taxi market.
- johnloeber 11y agoI believe Nate Silver did the math and valued the entire global taxi business at about $200bn.
- martinald 11y agoWhile I do have problems with Uber's valuation for other reasons, this isn't it. Uber tends to massively increase the market for taxis. Loads of people I know who would never take 'normal' taxis now use Uber. Even teenagers use Uber regularly, they would never hail a black/yellow cab on the street (in my eyes).
- rhino369 11y agoI won't argue the valuation is correct, but Uber can grow the taxi market. I take cabs much much much more often than I otherwise would have. Before uber I'd spend maybe 200 bucks a years on cabs. Now I take on almost daily. Also 1 billion for 2% of Uber doesn't necessarily mean it's worth 50 billion because there might be liquidation preferences.
- bbali 11y agoUber is best positioned to usher in self-driving cars. If they are successful at it, their market opportunity is much larger than the Taxi-cab industry.
- prostoalex 11y ago> Uber is best positioned to usher in self-driving cars. Fleet management is all about buying, parking, filling up, maintaining, cleaning and eventually selling the vehicles once they ran their course. Why would Uber be better at all those things?
- bbali 11y agoEconomies of scale that it can drive from its platform given that it will have the largest base of customers as well as suppliers. It is very close to what Amazon did to bookstores and eventually to ecommerce business.
- prostoalex 11y agoSome of that doesn't scale rapidly. If they need to buy a thousand car washes nationwide, an owner in Omaha is not going to sell at a discount just because they already own 10 car washes in Los Angeles. Similarly with pricing for gas/electricity. Their economies of scale are akin to those of Avis or Enterprise Rent-a-Car, and those companies are not valued at high multiples, due to high upfront capital requirements, insurance burden, fast depreciation, low barrier to entry, etc. Current multiples for Uber are there precisely because of the lack of all liabilities associated with car ownership and maintenance.
- bbali 11y agoI would be surprised if the prevalent economic models will continue to apply. Think Walmart, Costco, Amazon and how they leveraged their scale to drive efficiency through the ecosystem. The prevailing models during those times were revisited which included prices, contracts, payments. In your specific example about car washes, I envision a huge warehouse with multiple floors to do automated car washes which is super efficient. This will happen as there will be a metric that will show how a minute saved on the car wash floor can save the company millions of dollars because of their scale. There will be no "car wash" dealership to negotiate with.