Uber Raises Its Stakes In India With A Fresh Investment Of $1 Bn

After Amazon it is Uber’s turn to pour money and bet on the Indian market. Uber plans on investing a whopping $1 Bn over the span of next nine months exclusively for the Indian market. The online cab company will be channelizing the funds to improve operations, expand into newer cities and to develop new payment solutions.

It won’t surprise us if Uber experiments with its on-demand delivery system as it recently tested the waters by delivering Ice Creams. This move comes after Ola, Uber’s biggest competitors on the Indian shores is reportedly closing $500 Mn in a fresh round of funding.

Amit Jain, President of Uber India told TOI that “Uber has grown exponentially in India, a global priority market for us, which has also quickly become the largest market geographically for Uber outside the US”.

Amazon has readied itself with a rather big coffer with an investment of $5 Bn for the Indian market which was once again followed by Flipkart internally raising $700 Mn. The customer acquisition race seems to have got a fresh round of fuel with the recent funding’s and the end consumer will be the ultimate benefactor of this.

The recent ban on Uber has also been revoked and the Delhi court will allow the firm to apply for the license again. Its surprising to know that a majority of online cab operators don’t have the necessary permit except for local cab aggregator BookMyCab, which was recently acquired by Jugnoo.

The San-Francisco based company has clearly earmarked India and China as its priority market and it will also be investing $1 Bn for the Chinese market. Uber is currently operating in 57 countries and is valued at more than $40 billion.

Welcome to Flash Feed, your essential source for breaking news and innovation from around the web – bite-sized and updated all day.

Note: We at Inc42 take our ethics very seriously. More information about it can be found here.