There is this underlying person behind the scene that not many of you may know, Japan's richest man - Masayoshi Son, founder of Japan's SoftBank Group (and no, it is not actually a bank, and FYI again, he's Korean and not Japanese). SoftBank invested in many ride-hailing startups around the world. Just to name you a few, he invested in Didi Chuxing, Grab, Ola (India), 99 (Brazil startup that was recently bought by Didi) and recently Uber. Just to make things look a little more interesting, here is what SoftBank owns.
- US Sprint Corporation (83%)
- Yahoo! Japan (43%)
- Alibaba Group (29.5%)
- Nvidia (4.9%)
- Flipkart (23.6%) - India's e-commerce
- ARM Holdings (100%) - the company that makes your smartphone chip
- A ton of other startups beside ride-hailing companies.
This is what SoftBank owns outright. But its effective ownership in many companies are more than what is stated. That is because Alibaba also invests in tons of other startups, many of which overlaps with SoftBank's own investments. This significantly increases the effective ownership SoftBank has over these companies.
Is it possible for this to be the last merger in the ride hailing business scene? Probably not. There are probably going to be a lot more mergers as companies start to consolidate, merge, and partner up in order to compete with other startups and to reduce the rate they burn their capital. SoftBank will probably also push for more of such deals since less loss-making = more profit-making, which will increase the value of its investments.
I think the most important question thus far is: Will I still be getting my weekly dose of promo codes and discounts for rides? Probably not :(
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