After Seven months of launching, Uber has quietly closed down the service of uberAUTO in New Delhi, reported a business magazine. A spokes person of Uber talking to a business magazine said “we are temporarily removing this product to solve specific problems that need to be resolved to help it scale.”
However, company has discontinued this service about two weeks ago, without providing any information on re-launching of the service.
UberAUTO was the pioneer to introduce alternative means of transport other than four wheeled taxi, it was also one of the many country-specific feature that Uber added to its apps, in order to win taxi war in India. The three-wheeler ride is cheaper and popular as well in number Indian cities.
In April 2015 when this feature was introduced by Uber, has also bought twist into business model of company. Later it was planned to expand the service to connected areas near to Delhi. Since, they were receiving tremendous feedback from the Indian customer for the service.
In the words of Uber’s spokesperson “The feedback from both riders and drivers has been tremendous,” an Uber spokesperson had told Quartz in June this year. “In fact many riders have become avid Uber riders because they got introduced to Uber because of uberAUTO and now use the other products as well, and really like the cashless experience Uber provides.”
Although, UberAUTO service was receiving a fair response in Delhi, but eventually somehow did not expanded its auto-rickshaw initiative in other parts of country. In addition to this Uber did never disclose the number of Rickshaw rides registered with them.
A reason for quietly shutting the service may not be clearly discussed, but lower margins and transaction sizes can possibly be blamed. Apart from this a large number of rickshaw commuters hardly choose app to book rides, instead they prefer to hail for auto-rickshaw passing by the road.
