Lyft completes its $197 million acquisition of Europe’s Freenow

Date:

Share:


Lyft has received the required regulatory clearance to finalize its acquisition of the European app-based taxi company Freenow. First back in April, Lyft’s approximately $197 million agreement with BMW and Mercedes-Benz allows the company to expand outside of North America for the first time.

Freenow’s service will continue to operate as normal, but  reports that users will be prompted to download the Lyft app when travelling in the US or Canada, and vice versa for Lyft riders in one of the nine countries or 180 European cities Freenow currently operates in. Eventually you’ll be able to book a taxi on either app without having to switch.

According to Bloomberg, none of the roughly 600 Freenow employees’ jobs are at risk, and while 50 percent of taxi bookings in Europe apparently still happen offline, the new partners believe there is a desire for that to shift more towards an online majority. In 2024, taxis accounted for 90 percent of Freenow’s income and they will remain the “backbone” of its business going forward.

As well as seamless app integration in the future, Freenow said in April that riders can expect more consistent pricing, faster matching and new features as a result of the Lyft acquisition. Lyft is the second-largest ride-hailing company in the US, trailing Uber, and has been looking to introduce more autonomous vehicles into its network from 2025 onwards after with Mobileye and several other companies last year.

If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.



Source link

━ more like this

Apple’s MacBook Air M4 is on sale for a record-low price right now

Whether you need a new MacBook for the upcoming semester or you've just been itching to upgrade from an older machine, now's a...

How Udyam Registration Empowers Indian Startups to Scale Faster? – Insights Success

Your startup idea is brilliant. You’re grinding 18-hour days. But you’re missing something simple that could change everything, an important piece of paper...

Nintendo sold 5.82 million Switch 2s in 7 weeks but still can’t keep up with demand

Nintendo has already sold 5.82 million Switch 2s since the console went on sale on June 6th and still expects to sell 15...

The Morning After: Is Zuckerberg reassessing Meta’s approach to open-source AI?

Earlier this week, Mark Zuckerberg published a memo outlining his vision to build AI "superintelligence." Citing "safety concerns," he wrote that Meta would...
spot_img