Uber Turkiye General Manager Neyran Bahadirli stated that Turkiye has a great potential in general and said, “Bringing Uber technology to other cities is actually one of our medium-term plans. We are evaluating it for now.”
Bahadirli answered the questions of the AA correspondent about the company’s global and Turkiye targets at the Uludag Economy Summit held in Sapanca district of Sakarya.
Reminding that they currently operate only with taxi license plates in Turkiye, Bahadirli said, “In accordance with the regulations, we changed our strategy to work with taxi policies and we have been continuing with a very rapid growth momentum for three years.”
“A taxi call was made 35 million times via the Uber application”
Pointing out that Turkiye has become one of Uber’s priority countries, Bahadirli made the following assessment:
“During the past year, 35 million taxi calls were made through the Uber application and nearly 45 thousand taxi drivers actively worked in the application. The number of downloads of the application in Turkiye is currently approximately 7 million. In other words, Turkiye is already a market with great potential for Uber, and we are working on how we can provide better quality service to our passengers in our taxis, and we have innovative projects specific to Turkiye in this regard.”
Stating that one of the innovative projects is the taxi reservation feature, Bahadirli said that this was implemented for the first time in the world in Istanbul and Ankara.
Bahadirli said, “In terms of taxis, passengers can now plan their taxi trips in advance through the Uber application. We see that there is a really great demand for this and this product, that is, reservation, is growing very rapidly.”
“We operate in 10 cities in Turkiye”
Bahadirli gave information about Uber’s plans in Turkiye and said:
“We are currently operating in 10 cities in Turkiye. Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir and Antalya are our largest cities. So, is there a possibility of increasing the number of cities? We are currently evaluating this issue. But for us, Turkiye has a great potential in general and one of our medium-term plans is to expand to new cities and bring Uber technology to other cities. We are evaluating it for now.”
“Turkiye is one of Uber’s priority countries globally”
Stating that Turkiye is one of Uber’s priority countries globally, Bahadirli gave information about the reasons for this.
Bahadirli said, “First of all, we continue with a very rapid growth momentum. Taxi has already become one of Uber’s priority strategies globally. This again puts Turkiye in an important position. Because Uber now follows an inclusive strategy for all players in the ecosystem. The goal is to add all taxi drivers in the world to its platform by 2040.”
“Electric vehicles are one of Uber’s biggest goals for the future”
Neyran Bahadirli said that electric vehicles are one of Uber’s biggest goals for the future.
Bahadirli pointed out that Uber aims to be a zero-emission platform by 2040 and concluded his words as follows:
“In other words, all trips made through the Uber application are planned to be made with electric vehicles, and Uber has a global investment commitment of $800 million for this. When we look at it, investment support has already started in some countries. For example, it is planned to achieve the zero emission platform target in the UK, France, European countries and America much more soon. Of course, I can say that this is the vision we desire for Turkiye. We are evaluating new projects on this issue.”
Source: AA / Prepared by Irem Yildiz