-Written by Fernando-
Well recently, Uber is under the spotlight once again with another whistleblower surfacing, this time from the ex chief lobbyist for Uber in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. Mark MacGann leaked over 124,000 files that showed potential illegal practices when trying to expand Uber into other markets around the world. Now we have to ask ourselves what this could mean for $UBER. Well scandals like this surrounding Uber are not really all that new. Some older scandals include:
- A former engineer for Uber that wrote a blog post about sexism in the workplace that was quickly picked up by major news outlets.
- A lawsuit from Google’s company Waymo.
- The numerous scandals involving the former CEO (Travis Kalanick) including sexist jokes, footage of an argument with his Uber driver, HR complaint about visiting an escort bar in Seoul.
Despite these brutal situations the company has been through, not all has been lost with Uber. In fact, it is still very much competing for the top spot in the ridesharing industry. The convenience for finding a ride or quick food delivery is what has kept it alive. The tech is great, and people love this service in their lives, but the biggest problem Uber faces is not their scandals, it is the competition.
Unfortunately for Uber the service it provides is easily replicated, with somewhat low barriers for entry. Competitors are sprouting quickly like:
- Lyft ($LYFT)
- Curb
- Ola Cabs in India
- Grab ($GRAB) in Southeast Asia
- Cabify in Spain and Mexico
- Google’s Waymo ($GOOGL)
- DoorDash ($DASH)
- Grubhub
- Zomato
- Swiggy
- Not to mention, public transportation and local taxis.
It’s easy to look at the scandals and say that Uber would go down for those reasons AND adding salt to the wound, the competition is just too fierce. With my experience living in the bay area, where this service is just a part of everyday life, I can certainly say that everyone I know always looks for the cheapest option when it comes to rideshares. Uber is definitely not always the option because many people are not loyal to any rideshare companies. With Covid not being on many people’s minds as it once was, I can see public transportation begin to fill back up as it used to be. Sure Uber has come back from a dip but the climb seems a lot tougher given these new competitors.
Conclusion: Stay away from Uber for now. My prediction is that $UBER slowly keeps falling as it has for the past year and it eventually falls below $20 and even below $15. This fall continues unless the company finds success in the foreign markets and transforms to a place where they can operate at a profit while still competing on prices (which would be incredibly hard to do). Of course this is just my opinion; do your own DD before making any investment decisions.