
What Uber Left Behind in Asia - wintercarver
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-02/what-uber-left-behind-in-asia
======
arnvald
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-...](https://thenextweb.com/asia/2018/03/26/ubers-southeast-asia-
operations-acquired-by-grab/)

~~~
ergocoder
South-East Asia market is very strange. Uber should have won the market
easily.

I live in US and from Thailand. Grab in Thailand is much worse than Uber/Lyft
in US in terms of experience. The fundamentals don't work well. I used Grab 5
times in Bangkok and only succeeded once (e.g. the driver accepted but never
came, the driver almost arrived but turned away). In the success case, I
waited 20+ mins (which is normal for Bangkok's traffic, I guess). In US, the
reliability has been 100% for me, and the wait time is like 10 mins max.

~~~
ryannevius
I'm from the US but have lived in Thailand for the past year. I use Grab every
day, often 2 times or more. 90% of the time, Grab is fantastic – quick, clean,
cheap. The other 10% of the time, the drivers either can't use a GPS, have a
car that has issues, are drunk, tired, or just choose to drive recklessly.
Overall I find the service indispensable, but quality control is an issue.

During a recent couple of months in Vietnam, however, Grab was a mess. Drivers
would regularly refuse to both pick me or cancel, and I was left stranded (if
I canceled more than a couple of times, I would be blocked from using the
service for a few days). I spent more than a couple of evenings sitting on the
side of the road, playing a game of chicken with the driver on the other end
of the service, seeing how many hours it would take them to cancel.

~~~
metildaa
Sounds like Grab isn't doing basic Quality Control like cancelling unfulfilled
rides after a reasonable time (eg: 30min to 45min).

------
rjf72
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?location...](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/PA.NUS.PPPC.RF?locations=ZA)

~~~
temp20160423
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.

------
wintercarver
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/michelleev...](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/)

~~~
ShorsHammer
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
Alipay is all over the place in Thailand.

~~~
ShorsHammer
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
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
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
Even stores with faster connections like grocery stores in bigger cities it is
"wait a few seconds" (less than ten, they have it down to 3-5 seconds at this
point) and then collect the receipt after it slowly prints out.

Whereas in Australia, it is just "tap and go." Starbucks works similarly with
their QR code buying (but the money is onloaded to a digital gift card; but
then I never use it anymore since mobile ordering is so damned convenient).

~~~
eropple
Can't speak to Australia. My barometer is Europe; in urban England it was
still five seconds and in rural France it was worse than at home.

(I agree it's less than ten, I just couldn't remember any off the top of my
head that I felt confident asserting.)

------
Invictus0
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
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.

------
Gys
Great ‘demo’ of how Gojek sees their future:
[https://www.gojek.io/superapp/](https://www.gojek.io/superapp/)

~~~
tdmule
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)

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

~~~
jeffbax
Same with Didi in China, not sure about the Russian ride shares though

------
miguelrochefort
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
Grab is getting bigger in Cambodia, but PassApp still has a bit more name
recognition since they were here first.

------
runn1ng
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)

------
companyhen
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.

