Uber's main US competitor, Lyft, has managed to expand internationally without leaving its San Francisco headquarters, thanks to a new partnership between four major ride-hailing companies.
The company plans to announce today that Singapore's GrabTaxi and India's Ola are joining a partnership with the ride-hailing companies Lyft and Didi Kuaidi, creating a global alliance between the startups.
Lyft users visiting China, India, or Singapore can open up the Lyft app and hail a ride from one of their partners, instead of having to download a new app in a foreign language each time they visit.
According to the companies, the partnership now covers nearly 50 percent of the world's population.
The news of the partnership follows on the heels of Uber's latest funding round designed to bankroll its international expansion plans. Uber is reportedly raising another $2.1 billion for its international expansion plans, but its newest investor includes a major firm behind all three of Lyft's new partners. Tiger Global is also an investor in Ola, GrabTaxi, and Didi Kuaidi.
China's Didi Kuaidi isn't afraid to call the partnership a "win for the diversity" (not the takeover of one unmentioned global company) for the industry.
"The partnership with Lyft, GrabTaxi and Ola allows Chinese users unprecedented ease of international travel, and helps each of us improve our own services, leveraging our collective technology and expertise," said Chen Wei, CEO of Didi Kuaidi, in a press release. "This is a win for the diversity and vitality of the global rideshare industry.”
