By Akash Sriram
(Reuters) – Lyft (LYFT) is shopping for mobility platform FreeNow from German automotive giants BMW (BMW.DE) and Mercedes-Benz (MBG.DE) for 175 million euros ($198.40 million) to increase into the European ride-hailing market, the U.S. firm mentioned on Wednesday.
Beneath stress from dominant ride-hailing rival Uber Applied sciences (UBER) in its dwelling North American market, Lyft has been in search of new avenues to develop its enterprise.
The acquisition of FreeNow will practically double its potential market and open doorways to main European cities akin to London, Frankfurt, Paris and Milan, the place the German agency gives providers starting from conventional taxi to e-scooter leases and car-sharing choices.
Lyft could be coming into the European market at “a great worth and extra importantly, a good time,” Lyft CEO David Risher instructed Reuters, including the corporate was in a financially sturdy place to increase.
FreeNow operates in additional than 150 cities throughout 9 European nations. The corporate mentioned in September it had achieved break-even standing, on the again of a 13% year-on-year enhance in 2024 income and its give attention to taxi operations.
Lyft mentioned the acquisition will virtually double its addressable market to greater than 300 billion private automobile journeys per yr from about 161 billion.
“Nearly half of the taxi trade in Europe remains to be offline. So it is also the place quite a lot of progress potential comes from,” FreeNow CEO Thomas Zimmermann mentioned in an interview.
However its efforts to develop in Europe by capturing extra of the offline market will face competitors from Uber in addition to Estonia’s Bolt Know-how, as each firms have a powerful maintain over the European market.
European rules are additionally pushing ride-hailing companies to boost driver advantages, akin to minimal wage ensures and vacation pay, whereas additionally rising stress on pricing buildings to make sure truthful compensation.
Bolt lately launched advantages akin to vacation pay and minimal wage ensures for UK drivers in response to regulatory pressures.
($1 = 0.8821 euros)
(Reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Enhancing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)
Source link