INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
“The next hundreds of millions of riders for us are going to come from outside of the United States”, Uber’s head of rider experience
The transportation giant already sees 75 million riders per month and 15 million rides per day
But to grow in the developing world, it had to rethink its app to work on the oldest phones and slowest networks
So Deng’s team traveled the globe asking people what they needed from Uber, but also what they didn’t.The result is Uber Lite.It’s
launching today in India before rolling out to more countries, though there’s still a waitlist form instead of a download link
The Android app takes up just 5 megabytes
“You delete three selfies, you have room for Uber” Deng laughs. 300-millisecond response time means its quick to hail a ride, even for
the 4 percent of users in India on sluggish 2G networks
And by streamlining the design and only showing maps by request, it won’t burn much data for users on a budget.Uber needs to score growth
in developing markets after retreating while cutting deals with local winner like Didi in China, Grab in Southeast Asia, and a forthcoming
arrangement with Yandex in Russia
India’s Ola rideshare service already has a ‘Lite” app that’s just 1 megabyte and a 45% share of the taxi market, compared to
Uber has reported has talked with Ola about a possible merger in India, sources have told TechCrunch and others
With the country making up 10% of Uber’s rides, it’s a market it can’t forfeit.To reach its full potential, Uber has to start
out-competing homegrown competitors. Success with Uber Lite could give it leverage with Ola and path to gaining more of it around the
world.“We know we’re not just a U.S
company, we’re a global company
Not only have we built this for the world, it was built in India” Deng tells me. Deng came to Uber in March 2017 after 10 years at
Facebook’s various companies
It was early to the “Lite” idea, with its shrunken app reaching over 200 million users. But Deng says Uber Lite didn’t come from
stripping down the main app, but building it up from scratch
“The team has traveled to markets around the world to do in home interviews to understand the needs of the customers.”Compared to the
181 megabyte standard version, Uber Lite is a lot easier for low-storage phones to handle
Uber Lite launches not to a map or a text entry box, but instead a suggested nearby business or landmark based on your GPS
“You have to do less typing and can do more tapping” Deng explains
It also tries to guess your destination based on pre-cached popular city spots
You can input addresses, but Uber Lite won’t load a data-heavy map unless you purposefully grab for it
‘Tap for map’.Same goes for your driver’s ETA
After you’ve selected your vehicle type and hailed, you’ll just get a countdown to their arrival unless you tap to see them on their way
Payment for now is cash only
But soon Uber plans to add India’s popular Paytm payment platform and credit card options
It’s also still lacking notifications, which seem worth the data
More languages will come too.Uber wouldn’t explain how, but it also revealed that it plans to offer offline hailing, possibly through some
peer-to-peer Bluetooth mesh network or other technology
One other interesting test its running in India lets users punch in a code found at a bus stop to instantly hail a ride there
Another lets older or less phone savvy users phone in to an accessibility team that can hail a ride for them
It’s already offered web bookings
“The whole charter is to allow everyone around the world to experience Uber” Deng says.What Uber wouldn’t skip in v1 was the in-app
support and a way to share your ETA with loved ones so they can watch out for you
“We knew how important safety was in these markets. I’m really proud we took additional steps to empathize” Deng says.The company is
clearly trying to put the darker moments of its past behind it. While cynics might take the compassion talk as just lip service like the
company’s big apology ad campaign, it’s also the reason some tech talent has stayed at or joined Uber
If the company is going to be unavoidable, making it secure and accessible is a pretty good reason to wake up in the morning.
