Merging Yandex Taxi and Uber. Unification of giants: why Uber and Yandex.Taxi. What will happen to the services

The largest players in the passenger transportation market in Russia Uber and Yandex have teamed up. The decision to merge was made back in 2017, but the final merger took place only on June 14, 2018. The management set itself an ambitious task: to create a “personal public transport»Which could become an affordable alternative to buses, metro or personal cars. But what were the real consequences for passengers and drivers?

Conditions and purposes of association

The volume of investments in the merger and amounted to $ 100 and 225 million, respectively. Most of the shares (59.3%) were absorbed by Yandex, another 36.6% was bought by Uber, and the remaining 4.1% following the results of the transaction were divided among the employees of the combined company.

For the passenger transportation market

The passenger transportation market in Russia is undergoing significant changes. almost completely replaced the classic taxi companies. The competition is getting fiercer, and when the two large companies unite with each other, it becomes even more difficult to compete with them.

Note that earlier in Russia several more companies operating in the field of passenger transportation, including with the help of mobile applications, have combined their services. Thus, as a result of the merger of RuTaxi, taxi "Vezet", "Leader", "Saturn" and RedTaxi, a new major player in the market was formed - the operator Fasten Russia. According to analysts, it accounts for approximately 12.3% of all taxi orders in Russia (at the end of 2017). In the same 2017, the combined share of Yandex and Uber absorbed 10.4% of the market. After the merger by joint forces, the companies will be able to provide about a fifth of the orders in the passenger transportation market. In large cities, this figure may become even higher.

Photo. Key market stakeholders (research conducted by the analytical center under the government of the Russian Federation).


It has become a real information bomb - this merger can significantly change the further development of the taxi market in Russia.

Rusbase decided to find out the opinion of a specialist on the topic - the co-founder of the Busfor service, Ilya Ekushevsky, tells what the merging of services means, why it happened and what are the price prospects for end customers.

“Ride and that's enough”: what does the merger of Yandex.Taxi and Uber mean - an expert opinion

Ilya Ekushevsky

Have a ride and that's enough

The point is that the consolidation of large players can lead to market monopolization. As a result, the service will rise in price for end customers, but not immediately.


According to Western publications, the deal on the merger of the companies should be completed by the end of this year, so while the cost of the service, most likely, will not change. But in 2018, changes can be expected: the preconditions for an increase in value have long been ripe.


The possible price increase is due to the fact that due to competitive struggle the cost of a taxi ride has dropped to such an extent that the service has become affordable for everyone. Therefore, the rise in price may occur at least in those cities where the share of the merged company will be high.


Residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg are likely to be the first to feel the price change:

  • First, these are cities with the highest average income per capita (in comparison with other regions of Russia).
  • Secondly, here the price of a trip to Yandex.Taxi and Uber was initially higher than in other cities of the country. Thus, the average trip to Yandex.Taxi in St. Petersburg cost 300–400 rubles, while, for example, in Perm a client could pay only 100–200 rubles. Uber in the regions gave and more low prices: from 60 rubles for a trip in the same Perm and from 150-200 - in St. Petersburg.

The audience in large cities is less sensitive to the increase in value, and here the new company can earn good money. Due to this, in other regions of the country, the cost is likely to remain low, which will allow to have a competitive offer and increase market share.

Competition is expensive

There are other prerequisites for combining the two services. It has become too expensive for each of the parties to compete: in a price war, traffic alone is not enough, it is necessary to constantly attract external investments. Multimillion investments do not always pay off.


I believe that the parties have determined that with the merger, their own economy will work better for them, and the business, due to the volume, will accelerate in development.

Remember? This has already happened

There are similar examples of successful mergers in the world. So, in the Chinese market, where Uber teamed up with a large local player Didi Chuxing in the summer of 2016, it only won. Obviously, it became more and more difficult for the American service to compete in a specific Chinese market, so the parties found common ground that worked for efficiency.


The global taxi markets are densely packed with strong local players. So, in China, Russia, India, the American service clearly had a difficult time, therefore, Uber has chosen a tactic of cooperation rather than fierce competition.


Uber can spend the released funds on product development and development of its own autopilot, which will definitely create a strong advantage in the future.

What about Gett?

The merger and Uber may bring other changes as well. The rest of the players on the market will have to look for new ways of development, adjust to the changing market conditions.


Gett "y, one side, it will become more difficult to develop in the market next to the merged company, because they will have fewer drivers. On the other side, he will be able to keep his audience at the expense of the best market offer, on a small volume it is cheaper to provide low cost transportation.


In theory, Gett can also team up with other strong Russian players, for example, with RuTaxi services (Saturn, Lucky and Leader). In my opinion, the struggle for a large part of the market is just beginning.

I figured out how all this will work and who will benefit from the merger of the two market giants.

Under what conditions are they united?

The parties have already disclosed the financial part of the issue. Uber will invest in new company$ 225 million and will receive 36.6 percent of the shares, Yandex - $ 100 million for 59.3 percent of the shares. estimated at $ 3.7 billion, it will operate in six countries and 127 cities, making 35 million trips worth 7.9 billion rubles. Yandex will also develop its UberEATS food delivery business based on Yandex.Maps walking routes.

What was the market like before the merger

According to Lenta.ru sources, in 2016 Yandex.Taxi drivers made more than 16 million trips a month, more than 500 thousand trips a day. The second-largest company in the market, Uber, had 4.8 million trips a month, or 160 thousand per day, while Gett, the last of the three leaders, had 4.3 million trips per month, or 143 thousand per day.

Photo: Evgeny Pavlenko / Kommersant

In the same year, experts from the analytical center estimated the total volume of the legal taxi market at 441 billion rubles, and illegal ones at 116 billion rubles. According to them, 338 thousand taxi drivers are constantly working in Russia, and the number of issued licenses exceeds 457 thousand.

More than 47 thousand licenses are in force in Moscow, more than 105 thousand in the Moscow region. This is due to the fact that today licenses in the capital are issued only to yellow cars, and in the Moscow region the official color of a taxi is white, that is, the car does not need to be repainted or pasted over with foil.

Most of the cars are owned by taxi companies, while Yandex.Taxi, Uber and Gett act as order aggregators, that is, a more advanced analogue of dispatch centers. They charge the taxi companies a monthly commission for using their system and charge 15-20 percent on each trip. Taxi companies themselves make money by renting cars, daily receiving up to 2 thousand rubles from taxi drivers.

The average revenue of a taxi driver in Moscow is 7.3 thousand rubles a day, in St. Petersburg - 6 thousand rubles, in cities with a population of over one million - 3.5 thousand rubles. Most of the drivers are registered as individual entrepreneurs and are not officially listed in the state of taxi companies from which they rent cars.

What changes await drivers

Uber and Yandex.Taxi will unite the driver databases, and they will also use Yandex's maps and order distribution algorithms. In theory, it will become easier for taxi drivers to navigate the city, since the Yandex navigator objectively better service used in the Uber app. The consolidated base (again in theory) will increase the number of available cars, which will shorten the delivery time and reduce the cost of travel.

However, the taxi drivers themselves are not very happy about this. The driver of Yandex.Taxi Said told Lente.ru that the abundance of free cars will increase competition, but will reduce the workload of drivers. This means that the number of trips will decrease. “This is all, of course, very cool, but I pay 1,850 rubles a day for a rented Ford Focus. And also gasoline - the car "eats" 10 liters per 100 kilometers, which is 370-400 rubles. Plus a commission of 800 rubles - formally it is paid by the taxi company, but in fact I am. My average order now is 300 rubles, I make about 15 such orders. So count how much I will earn, ”he complains.

Photo: Anton Belitsky / Kommersant

Uber driver Aleksey also agrees with him. “You can't work without a license now, plus soon we will be completely bent over with color, in Moscow all cars must be yellow, and it costs 30-40 thousand to cover with film even by acquaintance. Yes, now we will fight for every order, passengers will surely like it. But we will definitely be able to raise less money, and migrants will squeeze us out. They are ready to plow on speed [amphetamines] for 20 hours, but we are not. Although you have to go wherever you go, ”he says.

Aleksey also noted that drivers will likely become more likely to earn extra money as a private cab driver. “You step into the night and stand at points where there are a lot of people. We often manage to negotiate for cash. And in the morning you start taking orders from Uber. True, for this you have to have your own wheelbarrow, in the taxi company they will quickly find out that you are busy for days, and they will not be allowed to go on the flight all the time, ”the taxi driver sums up.

Will passengers like the changes

In theory, the unification of driver bases and a unified navigation from Yandex will increase the speed of car delivery and allow taxi drivers to better orient themselves in cities. “This is very important, because 80 percent of the drivers are from the CIS,” explains a Lenta.ru source in one of the taxi services.

On the other hand, the price war between Yandex.Taxi and Uber, which annoyed taxi drivers, but liked users very much, will end. Both companies constantly dumped and introduced new options: in February they set fixed prices, and in April Yandex.Taxi supported Uber's announced price cut by 10-50 percent.

Photo: Alexander Koryakov / Kommersant

At the same time, to save income, both companies introduced so-called high-demand zones, where, depending on the time of day and the workload of drivers, the cost of the trip increased. True, this led to the fact that during peak hours tariffs soared by 200 percent, and in case of bad weather, a 15-minute route cost about 800 rubles.

Nevertheless, the merger of Yandex.Taxi and Uber is unlikely to reduce the cost of travel. On the contrary, the merged company will actually become a monopoly on the market, which means that it will be able not only to dictate the pricing policy, but also not to take into account the opinion of taxi drivers, who, due to the increased number of free drivers, will have no choice but to accept the new rules of the game.

This means that passengers will continue to be transported, including those who do not know the city, but taxi drivers who work for 20 hours and receive pennies for this. Only the price for their services is likely to increase, because now the Yandex.Taxi and Uber alliance need not be afraid that their orders will be picked up by the drivers of a competing service.

"And Uber have decided to merge the online travel-booking businesses and create a new company to do so, the companies said. The combined company will operate in Russia, as well as in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia and Kazakhstan. Uber's business in Ukraine is not part of the deal, an Uber spokeswoman said.

In Russia, as in China?

Last summer, Uber sold chinese business local competitor Didi Chuxing Technology. In China, the company suffered approximately $ 1 billion in losses a year and decided to abandon the struggle for the market.

Immediately after the announcement of the deal at 13.00 Moscow time, Yandex quotes on the Moscow Exchange soared by almost 7%, and then continued to grow and by 13.40 Moscow time grew by more than 17% to a historic maximum of 1915 rubles.

Uber and Yandex have decided to invest $ 225 million and $ 100 million in the new company, respectively, valuing the combined company at $ 3.725 billion. The company will be 59.3% owned by Yandex, 36.6% by Uber, and 4.1% by employees of the combined company. “Our teams will be united. I'm becoming director general of the combined company, ”said Tigran Khudaverdyan, General Director of Yandex.Taxi. According to Khudaverdyan, the companies want to jointly build "personal public transport" - an alternative to a private car, buses and metro.

Who won, who lost?

The Financial Times writes that in this way Uber is inferior to Yandex Russian market taxi after years of intense competition. The newspaper points out that this is the first strategic step of Uber after the scandalous departure of the founder of the service Travis Kalanick.

A player with a dominant position in the market close to a monopoly is being formed, says Alexander Frolov, partner of the Target Global venture fund. According to him, the fund has invested in the American taxi service Juno. The united player will complicate the development of other services such as Gett, City Mobil, "Lucky", Frolov believes. He saw a similar example in China, when local carrier Didi Chuxing also merged with Uber. Previously, services were actively competing, which resulted in favorable tariffs for users. But now the dumping period is ending, Frolov is sure.

UFG Private Equity partner (invested in the combined company RuTaxi and Saturn) Artur Akopyan believes that the deal between Uber and Yandex.Taxi was the result of subsidies from services: in a highly competitive environment, companies reduced prices and actually reimbursed the cost of trips as drivers. and passengers. He estimated that companies spent tens of millions of dollars a month on subsidies. The market simply cannot maintain such a level of competition for a long time, says Akopyan. He recalls that the merger of RuTaxi and Saturn was one of the first signs of imminent market consolidation. He believes that in the end two or three players should remain out of the variety of companies, and taxi prices will rise.

“This consolidation will increase the number of orders and the volume of travel for taxi companies, which previously worked with only one of the aggregators, as well as simplify the access of taxi companies to more passengers. Unification of the platform for Uber drivers and Yandex.Taxi will allow more efficient distribution of orders between drivers and reduce the idle run time, which will have a positive effect on earnings. On the other hand, I do not think that the tariff policy of services will change - the new structure will have a large number of competitors, such as Fasten, RuTaxi, Maxim and Gett, which occupy significant market shares. Any decisions of the merged company leading to an increase in tariffs for taxi fleets will only lead to the overflow of partners and drivers to competing companies, which will Negative influence on the quality of service. It is unlikely that Yandex and Uber do not understand this, ”Irina Zaripova, chairman of the public council for taxi development, told Vedomosti.

Applications will remain

After the deal is closed, both Yandex.Taxi and Uber travel booking apps will continue to be available to users. But taxi companies and drivers will switch to a single technological platform, which will increase the number of cars available for fulfilling orders, reduce their submission time, reduce idle mileage, increase the reliability and availability of service in general, the message says.

“The combined company will use Yandex's technologies and knowledge in the field of cartographic and navigation services and search engines and Uber's experience as a world leader in online travel booking services, ”the parties noted.

The boards of directors of both companies have already approved the deal, now it must be approved by the regulators. The parties expect to complete the merger in the IV quarter of 2017. “The FAS Russia has not received a petition for the merger of the Yandex and Uber businesses for online travel orders in Russia and other countries. The shares of companies in the specified market will be determined during a comprehensive consideration of the application upon receipt, ”said the head of the communications and communications department. information technologies FAS Elena Zaeva.

“According to forecasts of Yandex, the share of their joint business with Uber will be less than 50% of the market. Accordingly, if the share of the combined company is less than 50%, and also if it does not have a decisive influence on the functioning of the taxi market, does not impede competition in the market, the merger of the two companies will comply with the requirements of antitrust laws, ”said senior lawyer at BGP Litigation Anastasia Evtushenko.

According to statistics for the past June, the combined platform will cover 127 cities in six countries, both services account for 35 million trips per month, their total cost amounted to 7.9 billion rubles.

"" and signed an agreement to combine businesses for online travel booking in Russia, as well as in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia and Kazakhstan, the Yandex blog says. Against the backdrop of the transaction, Yandex shares at preliminary NASDAQ trading rose more than 12%. On the Moscow Exchange, quotes rose by more than 14%.

Under the terms of the agreement, Uber and Yandex will invest $ 225 million and $ 100 million, respectively, in the new company, valuing it at $ 3.725 billion. Taking into account these investments and possible adjustments at the closing of the deal, Yandex will own 59.3% of the company, 36, 6% are Uber and 4.1% are employees. The companies expect to close the deal in Q4 2017, after regulatory approval. Tigran Khudaverdyan, General Director of Yandex.Taxi, will head the company.

The new company will leverage Yandex's technology and expertise in mapping, navigation and search services, and Uber's experience as the world leader in online travel booking services. The companies also entered into a roaming agreement, according to which you can order an Uber taxi from the Yandex application and vice versa.

Khudaverdyan said that both service applications will remain available for booking trips, and the drivers will be combined into a single platform. According to him, this will increase the number of available cars and reduce the waiting time for an order. According to him, the companies want to jointly build "personal public transport" - an alternative to a private car, buses or metro.

"We will also continue to develop autonomous car technology, the first successes of which were published a few weeks ago. We use the many years of accumulated experience of our engineers, their knowledge in computer vision, pattern recognition and machine learning. I hope that soon there will be something to brag about," Khudaverdyan.

"This merger benefits not only both companies, but most importantly, users, drivers and cities," said Pierre-Dimitriy Gore-Coty, Uber CEO Europe, Middle East & Africa. "This deal confirms Uber's exceptional growth in the region and will help in the further formation of sustainable international business ".

The combined company will cover 127 cities in six countries and carry out about 35 million trips a month worth 7.9 billion rubles, Yandex calculated. In addition, the food delivery service UberEATS, recently launched in Moscow, will continue to develop in the new company. and will use Yandex.Maps pedestrian routing technology.

Uber entered the Russian market in November 2013 in Moscow, and by July 2017, the American service can be used in almost 20 cities in Russia. Yandex.Taxi was launched in Moscow in October 2011. Currently Yandex.Taxi operates in more than 100 large cities in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia and Kazakhstan.

In 2016, Uber completed a similar merger in China. The service has merged its Chinese business, Uber China, with its main local rival Didi Chuxing. Then the companies merged on the Didi Chuxing platform, which received the Uber China brand, business and company data, and Uber received a stake in the joint venture.

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