Is UBER done in Thailand?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Tonight, got an email from Uber saying that they're "combining" their Thailand operations with Grab as of April 8, and everything will run thru the Grab platform after that.

 

In a separate link on the Uber website, the headline refers to "Information about Uber's Sale to Grab"!!!

 

Email headline 7:33 pm tonight:

Important announcement: Uber combining operations with Grab in Thailand

 

 

https://help.uber.com/h/1e6cfc45-10da-416c-a7a3-d13f75505c34

 

All I know is, any time I've ever tried to use the Grab service from my home in central BKK, their app shows a dozen or so Grab taxis in my immediate neighborhood, and not a single one of them ever wants to take any of the trips I'm trying to book, usually 5+ km or so.  On the other hand, never had any problem booking a taxi trip with Uber...

 

Edited March 26, 2018 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[HidyHo]

What I was told by Uber driver is that the final destination is not known until they pick up the fare; whereas, in Grab, they know where you want to go beforehand.  So I guess they want a longer destination for larger fare.

 

I also like and use Uber more than Grab so will be sadden by this upcoming change.  It's always better to have choice and competition.  I hope a new challenger will come to the market soon.

 

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

12 minutes ago, HidyHo said:

What I was told by Uber driver is that the final destination is not known until they pick up the fare; whereas, in Grab, they know where you want to go beforehand.  So I guess they want a longer destination for larger fare.

 

I also like and use Uber more than Grab so will be sadden by this upcoming change.  It's always better to have choice and competition.  I hope a new challenger will come to the market soon.

 

 

 

I may be wrong about this, and if so, someone please correct me...

 

But my impression has been, generally, Uber drivers are private citizens working as freelancers on their own, driving regular cars.

 

Whereas Grab drivers seem to be regular taxi drivers driving the usual colored taxis, who may have affiliated themselves with Grab.

 

Frankly, I've had better experiences with the ordinary freelancer citizen drivers under Uber than I've had with the regular traditional taxi drivers, whether aligned with Grab or not.

 

PS - Every time I've ever booked an Uber taxi trip, in order to do the booking in their smartphone app, AFAIK, you have to designate what your starting and ending destinations will be. Lately, though, I think they also added the ability to have multi-stop trips.

Edited March 26, 2018 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Frankly, I've always seen Grab as simply a techie front end for the usual colored taxi types, who never had smartphone booking on their own before.

 

Whereas with Uber, it was an entirely different thing, and one that the Thai government has long maintained was illegal and supposedly was trying to do away with.

 

So the announcement of Uber's sale to Grab, either in Thailand or Thailand and all of SE Asia (the announcement isn't quite clear about that) makes me wonder the reason for the sale -- Uber's own internal corporate problems, or pressure by the Thai government and others to eliminate a competitor to the usual taxi m....s....

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The deal on Uber's exit from SE Asia is in the mainstream news today:

 

Uber sells South East Asia operations to rival Grab

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-43536322

 

Uber, losing $1 billion a quarter, sells its southeast Asian business

The deal could help Uber slow 2017's $1 billion-per-quarter burn rate.

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2018/03/uber-sells-southeast-asian-business-to-regional-rival-grab/

 

Quote

Uber is pulling out of Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Cambodia. According to Bloomberg, this represents a region of 620 million people. The deal includes the operation of UberEats.

 

Uber Pulls Out of Southeast Asia, Selling Operation to Rival Grab

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-26/uber-cedes-southeast-asia-to-chief-rival-grab-in-latest-pullout

 

Quote

 

The cease-fire marks a victory for Grab as well as SoftBank Group Corp., the biggest shareholder in both companies. Masayoshi Son’s firm is pushing to reduce competition in a Southeast Asian ride-hailing market forecast to reach $20.1 billion by 2025. Uber and Grab, together with two other SoftBank-backed ride-hailing firms -- India’s Ola and China’s Didi Chuxing -- provide about 45 million rides a day, according to SoftBank presentation material in February.

 

 

Edited March 26, 2018 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Argus Tuft]

It has been under discussion for at least two months - Grab taking over Uber in SE Asia.

Took them some more time to work out how it could be done in each of the countries they operate in.

Deal was done about 2 weeks ago, but the official announcement only came out over the weekend.

[HidyHo]

54 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

I may be wrong about this, and if so, someone please correct me...

 

But my impression has been, generally, Uber drivers are private citizens working as freelancers on their own, driving regular cars.

 

Whereas Grab drivers seem to be regular taxi drivers driving the usual colored taxis, who may have affiliated themselves with Grab.

 

Grab utilize both regular taxis (GrabTaxi) and private cars (Grabcar, same as Uber).  I can't remember in BKK but in Singapore, Uber also has option called UberFlASH that combines either private car or participating taxi company.  Few minutes on Grab website or the app can clarify this.  Both Uber and Grab apps are very simila.  I believe some drivers use both apps for find customers.

 

While both apps require final destination, this information is not available to Uber driver until they pick up the customer (this is what I've been told by Uber drivers) whereas Grab drivers can see the destination before they pick up the fare.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

All I know is, every time I've done an Uber ride in BKK, it's been via private car. And every time I've ever been able to book a Grab ride, it's ended up being with a regular colored taxi.  They may well offer another form of service, but obviously, I've never used it probably because it was substantially more expensive.

 

I've never heard of or seen an Uber colored taxi.

 

 

Edited March 26, 2018 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Argus Tuft]

Thai Visa had an article on this today also

 

Grab says Uber deal driven independently by firms, has SoftBank support

 

[Bang Bang]

What I want to know is what's going to happen with Uber Eats. Huge range of restaurants and flat 30b. delivery. I'll be seriously pissed if Eats closes. Hopefully, Grab takes it over and keeps it same.

[Metapod]

wow this sucks. i use uber all the time. <deleted>

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

11 hours ago, HidyHo said:

While both apps require final destination, this information is not available to Uber driver until they pick up the customer (this is what I've been told by Uber drivers) whereas Grab drivers can see the destination before they pick up the fare.

 

Re Grab, maybe that's the reason when every time I've tried with their smartphone app to book a Grab Taxi trip in town in BKK, 4-6 km trips, the apps shows a dozen+ taxis around my neighborhood in central BKK and not a single one of them willing to take the trip. To me, it's just the same old taxi mafia types in a new package.

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3 hours ago, Bang Bang said:

What I want to know is what's going to happen with Uber Eats. Huge range of restaurants and flat 30b. delivery. I'll be seriously pissed if Eats closes. Hopefully, Grab takes it over and keeps it same.

 

Same here, we use UberEats constantly, and the service overall from them has been VERY GOOD...... When they have made mistakes, they've done a very good job of making things right, one way or another.

 

In contrast to places like Food Panda, where I've had repeated mistakes and problems with, and they seem to do very little to solve/prevent their problems, except to apologize, again and again and again....

 

According to the news report, Grab is acquiring UberEats as part of acquiring Uber. But I've seen no word about what exactly that means for UberEats in Thailand.

 

AFAIK, Grab here right now, doesn't have anything similar or on the scale of UberEats, which is its own separate smartphone app apart from the regular Uber taxi trips app.

 

The news reports said customers will have to stop using the Uber taxi app as of early April and everything go thru the Grab app thereafter. But the announcement was silent about what if anything will happen with the UberEats app.

 

Last night, I tried to message UberEats BKK customer service via their LINE app, where they normally answer pretty promptly. But last night, my message to them went unanswered for hours. Never did reply at all -- and that was without me even getting the chance to ask them what I wanted to talk about (the Grab acquisition).

 

 

Edited March 27, 2018 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Last night, I tried to message UberEats BKK customer service via their LINE app, where they normally answer pretty promptly. But last night, my message to them went unanswered for hours. Never did reply at all -- and that was without me even getting the chance to ask them what I wanted to talk about (the Grab acquisition).

 

Figured, OK, I'll try UberEats on LINE again today, and did just now.

 

They never responded to my message to them last night, and now, still not responding to a new message to them today at noon time.

 

Never seen them unresponsive like that before.

 

[NutsMango]

3 hours ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Never seen them unresponsive like that before.

The difference in how West does business vs how Asia does it

 

Copy everything invented in the West and make it worse with government protection in place so you win.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

12 minutes ago, NutsMango said:

The difference in how West does business vs how Asia does it

 

Copy everything invented in the West and make it worse with government protection in place so you win.

 

Well, the whole point of this sale is to end or diminish competition in the SE Asian territories served by these two companies. Apparently, so the Japanese company that's the major investor in both can make more money when only one of the two companies is left standing.

 

When there's less competition, in this case for app-based taxi ride ordering, it's the consumer who's going to lose and be less well served.

 

[Justfine]

52 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

 

Well, the whole point of this sale is to end or diminish competition in the SE Asian territories served by these two companies. Apparently, so the Japanese company that's the major investor in both can make more money when only one of the two companies is left standing.

 

When there's less competition, in this case for app-based taxi ride ordering, it's the consumer who's going to lose and be less well served.

 

Uber has lost billions. The sell down or collapse worldwide is only a matter of time. Can't survive for long losing billions.

 

Naturally fares will go up.

 

The while thing was a scam anyway.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Almost every weekday for the past few months, UberEats BKK has had a promotion on their smartphone app -- free delivery (normally 30 baht) for up to 4 orders from 5 - 9 pm that day, if you went to the app and clicked for the promotion. That's been a very nice deal, in addition to the various other promotions they've offered, such as 30-40% off food prices on Thursday orders each week.

 

And perhaps not surprisingly, the Food Panda service ended up matching that with a similar offer during the past month -- free delivery from all the BKK restaurants in Food Panda's inventory during the month of March.

 

But yesterday, oddly, UberEats BKK suddenly had no 5-9 pm free delivery promotion -- the day their sale to Grab was announced. And again today Tuesday, no 5-9 pm free delivery promotion from UberEats.

 

So I'm wondering, is this just a lull in the action while the Grab-Uber buyout gets worked thru? Or they're done offering those kinds of promotions? Food Panda, ChefsXP, Line Man and others still exist, so it will be interesting to see how the food delivery aspect of all this plays out.

[bkk6060]

6 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Or they're done offering those kinds of promotions? Food Panda, ChefsXP, Line Man and others still exist, so it will be interesting to see how the food delivery aspect of all this plays out.

99% of the population cares less about any of this.

 

[Justfine]

7 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Almost every weekday for the past few months, UberEats BKK has had a promotion on their smartphone app -- free delivery (normally 30 baht) for up to 4 orders from 5 - 9 pm that day, if you went to the app and clicked for the promotion. That's been a very nice deal, in addition to the various other promotions they've offered, such as 30-40% off food prices on Thursday orders each week.

 

And perhaps not surprisingly, the Food Panda service ended up matching that with a similar offer during the past month -- free delivery from all the BKK restaurants in Food Panda's inventory during the month of March.

 

But yesterday, oddly, UberEats BKK suddenly had no 5-9 pm free delivery promotion -- the day their sale to Grab was announced. And again today Tuesday, no 5-9 pm free delivery promotion from UberEats.

 

So I'm wondering, is this just a lull in the action while the Grab-Uber buyout gets worked thru? Or they're done offering those kinds of promotions? Food Panda, ChefsXP, Line Man and others still exist, so it will be interesting to see how the food delivery aspect of all this plays out.

Is saving 30 baht that important? Surely not.

[Justfine]

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/uber-eatsa-nightmare-rip-off-frank-imbarlina

 

Sounds like a disaster

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

25 minutes ago, bkk6060 said:

99% of the population cares less about any of this.

 

 

At least in central BKK, you're clearly wrong about that.

 

My own house aside, in the evenings, I'm constantly seeing Food Panda, ChefsXP and UberEats drivers coming and going with deliveries.

[metisdead]

Please continue in the topic running here:

 

Grab Buys Uber’s Southeast Asia Business, Ending Service in Thailand in Two Weeks from Today