Mexico City shapes up as a ride-hailing services battleground
Warning: foreach() argument must be of type array|object, bool given in /home/mexiconow/public_html/sites/mexiconow/wp-content/themes/mexiconowwpnew/single.php on line 254
Soon Mexico City will be the battlefield of three strong competitors in the urban ride-hailing market with the arrival of Beat, a startup backed by Mercedes-Benz that will start operations in the country’s capital in March 2019.
The company of Greek origin will join the offer of Uber and its Chinese competitor Didi, which just started operations in the largest metropolitan area of Latin America.
“This is actually not our first time in Mexico City. We experimented briefly with the market five years ago and quickly discovered how challenging this market is. We didn't have the resources back then to succeed,” said Nikos Drandakis, founder and CEO of Beat. “Now that we have more experience and honed our competitive strategy with Lima, we believe Beat has what it takes to carve out a sizable piece of the Mexico City market. We've beaten bigger players before and we intend to do it again.”
With a population of 21.3 million, the opportunity in Mexico City is “ten times the size of your average market in Latin America,” said Drandakis. “There's easily room for three players.”
Beat is currently in the growing its Mexico City team and planning a number of brand building and awareness campaigns that implement PR, marketing, and digital strategies to recruit drivers and passengers.
MexicoNow recently had the opportunity to talk with Guillermo Rosales Zárate, Deputy General Director of the Mexican Auto Dealers Association (AMDA), about the impact that this type of services will have on the sale of new cars.Â
The executive said that it was still too early to determine the effect with concrete figures, but that it is undoubtedly a phenomenon that the agency is following closely.
MexicoNow
Related
- BMW considers Mexico City for a car-sharing pilot program
-Â Robert Bosch acquires ridesharing startup Splitting Fares Inc.
- Adient develops removable seat covers for ride-sharing market
