Lyft He has announced today The definitive agreement for the acquisition of Freeow, belonging to BMW and Mercedes-Benz, for 175 million euros in cash. This marks the definitive landing of this company in Europe, where until now it did not operate.
Freeow does not disappear. The German company will continue to operate independently, and according to the Lyft statement it will maintain its current management team and all its employees. The objective, those responsible highlights, is to continue promoting their growth in 9 countries and more than 150 cities in Ireland, United Kingdom, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, Poland, France and Austria.
Your market is doubled. The operation represents the most relevant international expansion of Lyft out of North America, and assumes that it practically doubles its total market. The annual projection will exceed 300,000 million journeys, and it is estimated that gross reserves reach 1,000 million euros per year, thus doubling the income that the company had so far.
From Mytaxi to Freeow and Lyft. Mytaxi was founded in 2009 by two German entrepreneurs. In September 2014, the Daimler Group bought the parent company of MyTaxi, Intelligent Apps, and in 2016 the platform merged with the British Hailo. BMW would form a joint-venture with Mercedes-Benz in February 2019, and a few months later Mytaxi would definitely become Freeow.
The border between taxis and uber/cabify/Lyft is blurred. The controversy that surrounded the arrival of the VTC and that threatened the taxi sector It ended up solving and today both types of private transport live together and in fact they have intermingled. Uber or Cabify applications have allowed for years they allow Reserve paths both in conventional and VTC taxis transparently for the user. In recent years, yes, the sector was regulated and for example licenses to the VTC were limitedalthough the Speculation with licenses Not having a brake.
More competitors. Lyft will despite a tough competition in Europe, not only by Uber, but also by companies such as Cabify in Spain or Bolt, another of the platforms that It has been operating for a few years also in our country and is growing in the old continent.
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