Uber Technologies is charting a major expansion in India, and it is going to open up big business for the automobile industry.
The company is planning to buy as many as 200,000 passenger vehicles over the next two years and lease them out to drivers who want to join its cab-hailing platform, a top executive said. The vehicle purchase, likely the largest ever by a single buyer in India, will be in addition to Uber’s programme to help driver-partners acquire their own cabs by arranging finance and negotiating deals with automakers.
The vehicles will be purchased by Uber’s leasing unit, Xchange Leasing. Maruti Suzuki and Tata are likely to gain the most as the San Francisco-based company already has pacts with the two for driver skilling programmes, vehicle purchase and finance solutions.
Raj Beri, head of leasing at Uber India, declined to share details of investment the company is planning to make in the fleet expansion programme aimed at signing up a million drivers in two years. It currently has 400,000 drivers on the platform.
Rival Ola recently signed a deal, potentially worth Rs 2,600 crore, with M&M to purchase 40,000 vehicles in two years for its driver-partners. Going by that valuation, the Uber plan could translate into a Rs 13,000-crore opportunity for automakers.
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