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We probably all had, at some point, an unfortunate incident or another with taxi drivers. This is what some companies like Uber are trying to avoid, by both supplying jobs to people all over the world, and by providing hopefully less awkward rides. And as the company is happy to inform, Uber has hit the 1 billion mark.
The one billionth ride
The billionth Uber ride happened to take place last night, in London. The customers were a couple, and they rode together from Hackney to Hoxton.
The car that got the one billionth ride was a blue Honda Insight Hybrid, and its driver is probably excited that he got to the lucky number.
Indeed, that is a very large number of drivers and passengers to share the roads, and the company CEO said that he couldn’t even imagine that they’d make it this far five and a half years ago, when he started the company in San Francisco.
The fact that Uber has raised a lot of money in venture capital, as much as $6.61 billion, is remarkable. What’s even more remarkable is the fact that the company is looking for even more.
Additionally, the huge investment yielded some pretty nice results for the ride hailing company, as they got valued at over $51 billion.
However, despite their indisputably huge achievement, the company has seen some pretty hard times lately.
A not so über year for Uber
Despite all of their successes, including one of their rival firms, SideCar, giving up, 2015 hasn’t been a very good year for the company.
The biggest issue the company is facing is the negative voices boycotting it because of Uber’s impact on taxi services. Multiple parties are trying to take down the company because if they keep at it, taxis will become obsolete.
The second biggest issue that the company is facing is its more than cold reception in some Asian countries.
In China, for example, Uber is directly opposed by the government, as some rival companies like Didi are paying the country’s officials to ban the service. The country’s most used social media network, WeChat, is also blocking the company, as it owned by Tencent, the company behind Didi.
In India, the situation is quite controversial, as an Uber driver was arrested for raping a customer. Ever since, the company was banned from India, and a rival firm, Ola, is continuing its dominance.
Additionally, a number of other rival companies like Didi, Lyft, GrabTaxi, and Ola announced an international partnership in order to take down their rival.
Image source: Wikimedia
