Daimler, BMW's Mobility Solutions Look To Unsettle Uber, Lyft

Daimler and BMW launched the 'Your Now' joint venture and now the companies say that there are 90 million people currently using the mobility services for car-sharing, ride-hailing, parking, charging and multimodal platforms, which are offered in over 1,300 cities worldwide. It's at this time that both the companies have decided to enter into the next phase of expansion and these will be tailored to customer needs and categorized into three pillars - Free Now, Share Now and Park Now & Charge Now. The introduction of a new umbrella organisation, effective January 1 2020, will support efficient management of these three pillars.

Free Now (formerly mytaxi) is heading for record earnings for 2019. Free Now has achieved platform revenues of more than two billion euros and reaches almost 300 million trips. Additional mobility services, such as e-scooters, electric bikes, car-sharing and public transport will also be integrated into the app, alongside its core ride-hailing business.

Reach Now is all about pooling several mobility services, with booking options, on a single platform. This service is currently used by more than 7 million people in 20 cities worldwide. Share Now, the free-floating car-sharing provider, which has emerged from the two services car2go and DriveNow, has registered about one million new customers since the start of the year. With the addition of Paris in January and Budapest in April, Share Now expanded its European footprint in 2019 to include two major capitals.

Charge Now and Park Now too have achieved significant growth. Of course, these mobility services will take established players like Uber and Lyft head on. While Uber and Lyft have not shown significant growth after the initial public offerings, both Daimler and BMW would certainly look at creating waves in markets like Europe and Latin America with their mobility solutions.