Uber makes a tactical retreat from South-East Asia
BEING a commuter in much of South-East Asia requires reserves of patience. In city after city, bar Singapore, jams confine people in taxis for hours, or force them onto the back of motorbikes that weave precariously through traffic. These qualities of perseverance are not shared by Uber, an American ride-hailing firm. This week it announced that after five years and $700m of investment in the region, it would be selling its business there to Grab, a Malaysian startup based in Singapore.
在东南亚的大部分地区，作为乘客需要有耐心。除新加坡，一座座城市，交通拥堵将人们限制在出租车上几个小时，或者强迫他们坐到摩托车后座上，制造交通危险。这些忍耐的特性并没有被美国叫车公司Uber所认同。本周，该公司宣布，在该地区进行5年共7亿美元的投资后，该公司将把自己在新加坡的业务出售给一家位于新加坡的马来西亚初创公司Grab。
South-East Asia is not known for giving birth to Silicon Valley-beating tech companies, says Ming Maa, Grab’s president. “This acquisition shows that this is changing,” he boasts. Under the terms of the deal Uber will take a 27.5% stake in Grab, which is valued at $6bn. The deal makes Grab, which started in 2012 after its two co-founders met at Harvard Business School, the dominant ride-sharing app in a market of 634m people. It operates in 191 cities across eight countries, and will now hoover up customers of Uber, who have two weeks to make the switch to the local service.
“东南亚并不以生产硅谷级的科技公司而闻名，”Grab的总裁明马（Ming Maa）说。“这次收购表明，这种情况正在改变，”他夸口说。根据协议条款，优步将持有Grab的27.5%的股份，估值为60亿美元。Grab是在2012年成立的，当时该公司的两位联合创始人在哈佛商学院相识，这笔交易使得Grab成为在6.34亿人的市场上占主导地位的拼车软件。该公司在8个国家的191个城市开展业务，现在将把优步的客户吸走，后者有两周的时间来完成当地服务的转换。
For Uber, cracking the market was always going to be a struggle. With the exception of Singapore, most rides in the region are astonishingly cheap, particularly if perched on the back of a motorbike. In order to stay competitive, Uber has had to burn through cash.
对优步来说，打开市场永远是一场斗争。除新加坡外，该地区的大多数交通都便宜得惊人，尤其是坐在摩托车后座上。为了保持竞争力，优步不得不烧钱。
Local companies such as Grab and an Indonesian competitor, Go Jek, which is valued at around $5bn, also offer more than just ride-hailing services. Indonesian users of Go Jek can order food, massages and manicures at the touch of the app. GrabPay provides mobile payment services, particularly useful for a region where an estimated two-thirds of people are “unbanked”. Two weeks ago Grab also started providing microloans to businesses in a partnership with Credit Saison, a Japanese firm. With the acquisition of UberEats as part of the deal, it will also expand its food-delivery service.
Grab和印尼的竞争对手Go Jek等本土公司，这家公司的估值约为50亿美元，提供的不仅仅是叫车服务。Go Jek的印尼用户可以在应用上下单订购食物、按摩和美甲服务。GrabPay提供移动支付服务，对于一个估计有三分之二的人“没有银行账户”的地区尤其有用。两周前，Grab还开始与一家日本公司Credit Saison合作，向企业提供小额贷款。随着收购UberEats，该公司还将扩大其食品外卖服务。
In their core businesses, too, local companies have innovated successfully. “In San Francisco, most vehicles are four-wheel cars,” points out Mr Maa. By contrast, most of Grab’s fleet consists of two-wheeled motorbikes and drivers wearing lurid green helmets. In Cambodia three-wheel tuk-tuks also chug along, ready to be hailed through a smartphone. In Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, where motorbikes can outnumber people, the company also introduced a new kind of payment system: rather than hail a rider through the app, only to miss them in the crowd, a customer can now pick their rider on the spot and instantly book their journey.
在他们的核心业务中，本土公司也成功地进行了创新。“在旧金山，大多数车辆都是四轮汽车，”Maa先生指出。相比之下，Grab的大部分车队都是由两轮摩托车和戴着可怕的绿色头盔的司机组成的。在柬埔寨，三轮的机动三轮车也在不嘟嘟行驶，已经准备好通过智能手机来打车。在印尼首都雅加达，摩托车的数量超过了人的数量，该公司还推出了一种新型的支付系统：只要在人群中有交错，用户就可以在原地认出他们招的车，并立即预订他们的行程，而不需要通过软件打车。
This week’s deal is also a coup for Masayoshi Son, chief executive of SoftBank, a Japanese telecoms and internet conglomerate. In January his SoftBank Vision Fund, with $93bn to spend, closed a deal to take a 15% stake in Uber. SoftBank itself was already Grab’s biggest shareholder. Both firms could benefit from less competition. Grab gets the market, but Uber’s losses of $4.5bn worldwide last year should shrink as it hunkers down before a planned initial public offering next year. Mr Son aims eventually to ensure that none of the many ride-hailing firms in which SoftBank holds stakes waste money fighting each other.
对于日本电信和互联网企业软银的首席执行官孙正义来说，本周的交易也是一记妙招。今年1月，他的软银愿景基金以930亿美元的价格收购了优步15%的股份。软银本身已经是Grab的最大股东。这两家公司都可以从较少的竞争中获益。Grab获得了市场份额，但优步去年在全球范围内亏损45亿美元，在计划于明年进行首次公开发行之前，该公司将会缩减规模。孙正义的目标最终是要确保软银持有股份的众多公司都不会浪费资金来互相争斗。
A similar deal in 2016 in China with Didi, in which Uber took a 17.7% stake, has worked out well for both: the initial value of the holding has risen from $6bn to $8bn. Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s boss since November, recently visited two other markets where his firm is either still battling or preparing to rival another SoftBank-backed firm—India, where Uber competes with Ola, a local firm, and Japan, a nascent ride-hailing market where Uber and Didi both have big plans. Whatever happens in these markets, ride-sharing increasingly seems to mean firms divvying up the spoils.
2016年，优步在中国与滴滴达成了一项类似的交易，优步获得了17.7%的股份。这两家公司的股价都表现不错：该公司的初始市值已从60亿美元增至80亿美元。自去年11月以来，优步的老板Dara Khosrowshahi访问了另外两个市场，在那里他的公司要么仍在与另一家软银支持的公司竞争，要么准备与另一家由软银支持的公司竞争。在印度，优步与当地的Ola竞争，而日本是一个新兴的叫车市场，优步和滴滴都有宏伟的计划。无论在这些市场中发生了什么，拼车服务似乎越来越多地意味着，众多公司将分摊战利品。
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline "Grabbing back"
英文原文选自《经济学人》