In a wave of entrepreneurship in the early 2010s, in which every industry was to be transformed through the deployment of mobile technology, Uber and Lyft were born.
The two companies are a product of the terrible taxicab ecosystem which existed in California before 2010. People could order cabs over the phone or on the internet, but operators would dispatch them based on their position in the queue, meaning someone could be waiting an hour for the cab to arrive from the other side of town. And if the cab saw a fare on the street, they were under no obligation to complete the booked ride.
In Uber’s case specifically, the app was designed to make ordering a taxi far more reliable. Lyft retuned its service a bit later to compete against Uber, as it was originally conceived as a long-distance carpooling service. In China, Cheng Wei was formulating a similar idea at the same time, after spending several years working in Alibaba’s payments division. Recognising the opportunity to build a secure payments system for taxi drivers, he launched Didi Dache. Cheng Wen and Joe Lee would launch a similar service in Hangzhou, called Kuaidi Dache.
Uber, driven by its then CEO Travis Kalanick, quickly expanded to Europe and Asia. Funded by a collection of venture capitalists eager to see ride hailing become the next big technology sector, Uber spent billions every year to compete in almost every market. This reached its peak in 2015, when Uber announced it was spending $1 billion a year to compete in China. As the threat of Uber China grew, Didi and Kuaidi, backed by Tencent and Alibaba respectively, merged.
The combined force was too large for Uber to fight, and the company bowed out of the country in 2016, selling its Chinese division to Didi for $35 billion and 17 percent of Didi. Even with the loss of China, Uber has remained the largest ride-hailing provider on the planet.
The coronavirus pandemic was detrimental to ride hailing operators, in some countries there was a 90 percent downturn in usage. It took two years for these companies to return to growth, with Didi taking even longer due to complications with China's covid policy and regulatory investigations.
We have collected data and statistics on taxi apps. Read on below to find out more.
Key Taxi App Statistics
- Taxi apps generated $59.6 billion revenue in 2024, a 27.6% increase on the previous year
- Uber made the most revenue by app, contributing to 42% of the total market revenue
- 425 million people used taxi apps in 2024
- Uber had a 76% market share in the US and 70% market share in the UK
- Rapido had the highest market share in the Indian ride sharing market, beating out Ola Cabs and Uber
Top Taxi Apps
| Link | Title 1 | Title 2 |
|---|---|---|
| https://www.businessofapps.com/data/uber-statistics/ | Uber | The leader in ride hailing, operating in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia |
| https://www.businessofapps.com/data/lyft-statistics/ | Lyft | Uber’s competitor in North America, responsible for about 20 percent of US ride hailing |
| https://bolt.eu/en-gb/ | Bolt | Estonian operator currently active in 35 countries in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East |
| https://cabify.com/ | Cabify | Leader in the South American market and also active in Spain and Portugal |
| https://www.free-now.com/ | Free Now | An amalgamation of several ride hailing services, owned by Daimler and BMW |
| https://www.gett.com/ | Gett | Instead of using gig-workers, Gett connects drivers to licensed black cabs in Europe |
| https://web.didiglobal.com/ | DiDi | After merging and acquiring its main competitors, Didi Chuxing is the largest operator in China |
| https://www.olacabs.com/mobile | Ola Cabs | India’s competitor to Uber, responsible for about 50 percent of all rides in the country |
| https://www.grab.com/sg/ | Grab | Singaporean transportation giant Grab operates a ride hailing service in Southeast Asia |
| https://www.gojek.com/en-id/ | Gojek | Another Southeast Asian operator which is positioning itself as a super app |
Taxi App Market Size
Taxi apps made $59.6 billion revenue in 2024, with the main operators taking a 10-30% take from each ride.
