Latin America: Ride Sharing Apps big business, stiff competition

latimes.com reported but competition is stiff here for the San Francisco-based company, which often trails homegrown alternatives that use established taxi fleets rather than private cars, such as the Brazil-based Easy Taxi, which claims to have the leading application in Latin America.

On Tuesday, Easy Taxi announced it was merging with Tappsi, an app based here in Bogota, bringing together the two market leaders in Colombia against third-place Uber. A number of apps are preparing to battle for the growing number of Latin Americans who turn to their smartphones to get around.

A similar boom is underway in Lima, Peru’s capital, where Uber is just one of 10 ride-hailing and sharing applications based on Internet and GPS. Easy Taxi makes up to 50,000 trips per day in Lima, according to Transitemos civil society group. Uber says its driver base there is growing at a rate of 10% a week. Read Article