Prabhjeet Singh, head of strategy, Uber India talks about the growing trend of Indian travellers using Uber app in countries like the US, UK, Singapore, UAE and Malaysia. By Sudipta Dev
In which countries are Indian travellers using the Uber app more proactively?
Our goal is to get more users trying Uber this year than they did last year and to be the single biggest global choice for riders and drivers everywhere from Mumbai to Madrid, New York to New Delhi or Beirut to Bangalore.
As per our data, Indian travellers have used Uber in 68 countries around the world. The data from first five months of this year shows that the maximum number of Indian travellers are using their Uber app in the US, followed by UK, Singapore, UAE and Malaysia.
What kind of growth have you witnessed over the years?
We are seeing phenomenal growth – both in India and also Indians using Uber globally. Studying the Uber trips worldwide by Indians, we see to-date, approximately 80,000 unique Indian app users have travelled in two or more countries using Uber. Of these, about 40,000 have used the services in 2016 itself – this means that in last five months we have added as many new ‘global Uber’ riders as in first two years of our operations in India!
Any interesting trends in terms of profile or preference of these travellers?
While US, UK and Singapore remain the top three countries for incoming and outgoing ‘global Uber’ users – China is growing very rapidly. Interestingly, there are a lot more visitors from China who use Uber in India than vice-versa.
In the next few years in which overseas destinations do you foresee Uber app usage becoming more popular for Indian travellers? Any new destinations?
We are in 70 countries, 400+ cities today and continue to expand into new cities every week. Our mission is make transportation as reliable as running water – everywhere for everywhere. Being a global platform helps us get closer to that vision. You can be an Indian business or leisure traveller today and can board a plane to any country and rest assured there is a high likelihood of you finding an Uber at your destination. In terms of ranking by country of the most common tourist destinations among Indian travellers from January 1, 2016 to May 15, 2016 is the US followed by UK and Singapore.
Have you done a study of how many foreign visitors to India use the app here? Which cities?
Yes, the data collected from all the completed trips from January 1, 2016 to April 1, 2016 suggests that visitors from 68 countries use the Uber app in India.