SoftBank has asked for a merger between India's homegrown ride-hailing firm Ola and its US counterpart Uber operating in India. With this merger, the Japanese investment giant aims to consolidate the ride-hailing market in the country. SoftBank is the biggest investor in both the companies and began pushing its plans for the merger between the companies since the last year, with the plans gaining momentum only recently.
Ony recently, Uber had closed its operations in Southeast Asia after trading its local units to Grab, its rival in the parts, agreeing to a 27.5 percent control in the merged entity.
As per a report, senior executives of both Ola and Uber are in talks for the merger and the deal might be closed within a few months. As per another source, Softbank might favour Ola acquiring Uber India, though the details of the merger are still being discussed.
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In case both the ride-hailing companies go ahead with the merger, it would mark fourth such operation shut down for Uber, after China, Russia and Southeast Asia.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has different plans for India though. An internal statement by him, now present on the company blog states "The great news about our Grab deal is that it allows us to double down to invest aggressively in our core markets—and we consider India very much as core to Uber’s success. We’d, of course, look at any deals that can add value to our partners and shareholders, but we believe in controlling our own destiny in India."
As per independent analysts, Uber and Ola celebrate almost the same amount of market share in India. This is a major point of contention in the merger of both these companies.
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