Cabify risks losing fleet supremacy to Uber in home base Madrid
04/01/2022 14:27
By Inti Landauro
MADRID, Jan 4 (Reuters) - The ride-hailing app Cabify, one
of Spain's few 'unicorn' tech startups, risks losing ground to
foreign rivals such as Uber UBER.N or Bolt in its home base
Madrid due to a row over exclusivity with a company which
employs 1,100 of its drivers.
Entrepreneur Felix Ruiz, co-founder of the privately-held
firm Auro which owns the cars and licences and employs the
drivers, told Reuters Auro had decided to switch them to either
Uber or Bolt or both from Jan. 20.
The Spanish company could fall to No.2 in its home turf, as
Cabify and Uber have about the same market share in Madrid,
according to Auro estimates.
Uber and Cabify declined to comment on their respective
market shares.
On Monday, Cabify said that an arbitration court ruling in
June obliged Auro's fleet to keep working with the app, but
Ruiz, although acknowledging that Cabify had won the
arbitration, said the contract with Cabify had been cancelled
and his company was prepared to defend its decision in courts.
Ruiz doubted the two could still reach an agreement.
"We are not aligned," he said, adding that he considered
Cabify's rival Uber to be "more efficient as its algorithm
allows for higher earnings", while Bolt's advantage was charging
less in a bid to gain market share.
Auro's pool of 2,500 delivery riders is already working with
Uber Eats and other retailers.
Madrid, where Cabify started operating a decade ago, has
about 8,000 vehicles licensed for ride-hailing services, and
competition is rife between apps which have been branching out
into scooters, bikes and grocery deliveries.
Cabify, which is considering going public but has not
announced any firm plan to issue shares yet, had global revenues
of $516 million in 2021, and over 5.4 million registered users.
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It uses the services of 230,000 drivers across its markets
in Europe and Latin America. It has 441 direct staff in Spain,
according to a recent company presentation.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro, additional reporting by
Clara-Laeila Laudette; editing by Aislinn Laing, Andrei Khalip
and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
((Inti.Landauro@thomsonreuters.com;))