‘Indian customers don’t want to pay for anything, country has been toughest market for us’: Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi

It was an honor to speak with @NandanNilekani about India’s progress on building digital public infrastructure. The scale of the work being done and its impact is stunning. I’m excited to see how @Uber can step up its collaboration with the ‘India Stack’ pic.twitter.com/XUeap0VZv7

— dara khosrowshahi (@dkhos) February 22, 2024

Khosrowshahi said that the company will be looking into tapping the digital public infrastructure potential in India through platforms like ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce), UPI, DigiLocker and Aadhaar to enable seamless mobility services in India.

Khosrowshahi also announced that Uber will be exploring more low cost mobility options, including buses in India, which he dubbed as the “single biggest opportunity” for the company in India and other developing countries.

“Uber services have historically been four wheelers and the core of business came from high end luxury goods. But actually, if you look now, for us the single biggest opportunity is lower cost products like three wheelers, two wheelers and buses. This is also an opportunity to expand our services to a wider population. We don’t want to be a product for the upper middle class population. We want to be available for everybody,” said Khosrowshahi.

He also added that the low cost products will be further bolstered with India’s DPI capabilities in the form of DigiLocker system which allows drivers to join the platform within hours.

“The DPI of India can become extremely important if we are working towards offering more low cost products like three-wheelers and two-wheelers and the buses that we are planning to build. We are rooting for this model not only in India but especially in developing countries elsewhere,” said Khosrowshahi.

Khosrowshahi, also claimed that Uber was losing $3 billion in profits during Covid-19 pandemic, prompting him to layoff employees and come out of certain businesses. “During Covid, we lost 85 per cent of our volumes and that required a lot of soul searching. We were a company that was completely focusing on expanding but we had to retrench. It really forced us to decide what is the core value of the company and what is not. So, we were in other businesses like building e-bikes and scooters, autonomous technology, vertical take off-landing products and we had to painfully get out of those businesses,” said Khosrowshahi.

He added, “We were losing about $3 billion of profitability. We went from a $3 billion burn to $5 billion burn. Fortunately, we had a lot of money in the bank and that’s because we raised way more capital than we ever thought we needed, except, we needed.”

Uber MouU with ONDC

Further, Uber also announced an MoU with India’s Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) to explore an integration with the network to expand the range of mobility offerings on the Uber app.

Our global CEO, @dkhos spoke with @nandannilekani on India’s digital public infrastructure.

Uber today signed an MoU to explore an integration with ONDC. https://t.co/ayctR4WoR7 pic.twitter.com/FM9GyNPzkB

— Uber India (@Uber_India) February 22, 2024

Speaking on the MoU, Prabhjeet Singh, President, Uber India and South Asia, said, “Our vision for Uber in India is to serve the mobility needs of all Indians. This is in line with ONDC’s objective of democratising digital commerce. We are excited to take our first step through this MoU with the ONDC to explore how we can accelerate our ambition to make Uber a platform for every Indian’s daily mobility needs. We are committed to play our part in helping speed up and strengthen India’s digital transformation.”