Meet Uber’s new India Head- an IIT and Stanford Grad!

Dealing with quite a few issues, the California based Taxi hailing service has appointed Amit Jain as the president of India operations. Jain, the IIT-Delhi and Stanford University graduate is former top executive at US-based Rent.com.

"Success in India is a global priority for us," Uber CEO Travis Kalanick told the Economic Times in an email. "(Amit's) experience as an operator, building and scaling world-class teams will be invaluable as we enter the next phase of Uber India's growth."
According to a news report by The Economic Times, the taxi-hailing firm's India revenue run rate - an annualized projection extrapolated from the latest revenue numbers - is close to Rs 1,100 crore ($200 million). "Uber expects this to increase by 35% at the end of July," said a source directly familiar with the matter, declining to be identified.

"Uber continues to see phenomenal steady growth of 40% every month in India as we increase our presence and reliability in the 11 cities across India where we are operational," Allen Penn, head of Asia operations at the company told the ET.


In December last year, Uber was in a bad pitch, after one of its drivers raped a passenger in the national capital.

Trouble for the taxi aggregator began in India after one of the drivers on its network allegedly raped a passenger in Delhi in December. Since then, Uber as well as Ola have come under greater regulatory scrutiny for their safety procedures and business models - the Delhi government wants cab aggregators to operate under radio taxi licences.

Ola, which is backed by Softbank, DST Global and GIC, plans to expand to at least 200 cities by the end of this year. The company's revenue spurt has been aided by its $200-million acquisition of rival TaxiForSure, whose revenue has doubled since the deal closed in March. Ola still accounts for over 80% of the combined revenue.

According to a Goldman Sachs report titled 'India rising internet', the domestic online car rental market is expected to reach $1.4 billion by 2030.

"(Taxi aggregators) are looking at aggressive marketing campaigns and deep discounts as a tool to retain or attract new customers. It is (also) important to address the larger issues like congestion, parking, air pollution, safety and connectivity," Jaspal Singh, cofounder of Valoriser Consultants, which provides market research services for transportation companies told the financial daily.

(Image: India Times)