American Taxi Company Uber

Uber, an American taxi company known as "Taxis and Spirits," announced on Monday a new service charge for New York City on the Web site, cutting the number of hot spots in the city by 20%. Coincidentally, Alibaba has been strongly supported by the "fast taxi", a variety of luxury cars into a high profile, clearly car to Uber declared war on. Together with Tencent (700.HK), the third force under the influence of "Didi Taxi", this market will have some big melee.

In December last year, LaoBi had put Uber Taipei service charges into Hong Kong dollar comparison, come to two conclusions:

First, Uber choose Mercedes S550, BMW BMW7 series, Lincoln Town Cars and other luxury cars to provide pick-up service, the taxi is expensive, reasonable. However, Uber charges far less than hotel car services and is worth the money.

Second, in the second half of last year, Uber introduced the UberX service that took the "civilians" route and piloted a price reduction strategy in various cities in the United States. The result shows that after the toll reduction, the hourly usage rate of taxis has risen sharply, and drivers' income has grown by more than 20% over the previous reduction.

In addition to a handful of "pilots" at the time, most cities in the United States were still cheaper than UberX. After half a year, Uber finally announced that UberX, which has already taken the "civilians" route, will cut its charges by 20% in full and enjoy the benefits of this "advanced pick-up service."

It remains to be seen how Uber will replicate the route across the United States and internationally, and how the taxi industry responds to this price war. However, Uber menacingly vowed to uproot the traditional taxi industry and saw its effect in two ways:

First, the taxi license price in New York City, which rose by an average of 14.4% from January 2004 to December 2012 for the first time in nine years, rose for the first time in ten years. The number of corporate licenses landed for a full year at the level of $ 1.32 million. Millions of dollars mark difficult to move. Second, the concept of taxi financing Medallion Financial Corp (NYSE: TAXI) has lost more than 30% of the stock price in the past six months.

The company itself is a microcosm of the taxi industry in New York. Its asset quality and performance are closely linked to the value of the taxi license plate as a loan collateral. The company's stock has plummeted by 30% since the beginning of the year and a reduction from Uber's charges. New York Taxi prices rise and then rise is no longer taken for granted, it does not matter?

On the other side of the pendulum, Uber, who is still burning the banknote, has been continuously backed by the gold lords. The company just completed a new round of private financing last month, raising 1.2 billion U.S. dollars. As a result, Uber's overall valuation as high as 18.2 billion US dollars. Amazingly, not only has Uber's valuation soared (more than tripling in less than a year), with its $ 18.2 billion "worth", the valuation / market value is already above the 254 component of the S & P 500 index. In other words, more than half of the large U.S. companies have to bow to their heads! Other shares even worse: in market capitalization, Russell 2000 index stocks, none of them and get Uber.

Investors who are happy to bet on their business model have been numerous in the past few years. Not only venture capital funds have been "watering" one round after another, but retail-oriented mutual funds have also become unwilling.

The latest financing last month, shares the most ruthless is bull throwing 425 million US dollars, exclusive 1.2 billion US dollars fund-raising amounted to 30% of Fidelity investment. foam? Maybe.

On the same day that Uber announced the price cut of New York service, the "Fast Taxi" which is funded by Alibaba and has the final listing will be introduced to the BMW A5 Series and Audi A6 models with a high profile. In conjunction with the new application "No. 1", Put the war on Uber. The Hangzhou-based company, of course, not only the Uber rival, but also by the strong support of Tencent's third force "Di Di taxi."

In China this business battleground, Ali, Tencent, Uber seems to have some fights soon.

This article is Copyright: HongKong XinBao Financial News