Page Seven / La Paz
This October 31, Uber celebrates five years in Bolivia and in this period facilitated the transportation of 30 million people in La Paz and Santa Cruz. As immediate plans, the taxi service application promises to expand geographic coverage and services.
Uber is a platform that connects drivers and deliveries with users, customers, and restaurants.
Spencer Friedman, general manager of Uber in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, in an interview with Página Siete, highlighted the achievements made in five years of life and the good reception that the service has had in the country.
As achievements, he highlighted that, since October 2016, growth in Bolivia has been impressive. “There are 21 million trips that have been consolidated through the Uber app in five years and 30 million people have been mobilized,” he stressed.
He also highlighted that tourists from 54 countries and from more than 1,000 cities used the Uber app to get a taxi and get around Bolivia.
“This makes sense because, if someone comes from France or another country, they know the Uber experience, which, the same in any part of the world, is used to visit restaurants, tourist sites and museums,” he said.
Photo: Uber
Among the achievements or anecdotes of Uber’s presence in Bolivia, the longest trip that was contracted was 330 kilometers and lasted nine hours; the shortest trip was 10 meters and lasted 40 seconds.
He explained that, during the pandemic, more than 80,000 new users used the app for the first time and more than 30,000 made at least one shipment to family and friends due to the impossibility of mobilizing.
During this period, 31,000 drivers joined the platform who were able to generate income for the family. “For them it is a flexible way to generate profits, anyone who wants to be a driving partner must pass security filters that are robust, but, after this, the driver is free to use Uber whenever and wherever he wants. There are people who provide the service on the weekend and university students who use it when they are resting, ”said Friedman.
He added that this is an alternative for generating income and economic reactivation for people who lost their jobs due to the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
In response to the health emergency, Uber Flash was launched to help driver partners generate extra profits and give users more options to stay at home. “To date, more than 47,000 trips have been completed with Uber Flash and its growth exceeds 85% compared to 2020,” said Friedman.
Perspectives
According to Friedman, Bolivia is an important market not only because of the amount of trips that the statistics show.
“There is a regulation that understands the nature of the technology app business and shows how authorities, people and companies can work together,” he said.
For Uber, the Bolivian market still has room to continue growing. “Definitely. And that is why the growth plans not only contemplate La Paz and Santa Cruz in terms of products, but also new cities. We are seeing opportunities to continue growing, we are going for another six to 20 years ”, he said.
Uber has 27 security functionalities that provide coverage on each trip with an insurance policy from La Boliviana Ciacruz Seguros, anonymization of the phone number when contacting the driving partner and option to share the trips.
It also has two tools that allow detecting anomalous stops in the trips and another to verify that they are boarding the correct vehicle.
