Travis Kalanick, the poster boy of startup industry, is confident that India can surpass US and China as Uber’s biggest market. Uber, which was last valued at $50 billion is one of the biggest cab-hailing app based company in the world.
Uber is facing stiff competition from Ola in India and Didi in China. But Kalanick appears unconcerned. “Competition makes us better. Our engineers are working very hard to make sure we deliver best experience and experience only gets better. At the end of the day you have got to be in the cities providing great service. Reliability and affordability is more important”, he said.
Uber’s had its share of problems in India, including the rape allegation in one of its Delhi cabs. The company has now turned to government portals to hire trustworthy drivers in India. They will be looking for the drivers registered on National career Scheme(NCS) portal, which has a pool of job-seekers that are verified and authenticated by government.
When asked about the regulatory flip flops in India, he said ”I don’t feel India has been particularly frustrating compared to other places in world. The kind of technology Uber brings there is huge upside for cities. To be honest, India has been open to this kind of innovation and technology. That’s why we exist in so many of India’s great cities.”