According to The Economic Times, the talks took place in May, but Rapido says they never happened.
The Uber Rapido merger talks reported this week describe two of India’s biggest names in ride-hailing apparently sitting in the same room discussing a future together — at least according to a new report, which both companies are now handling very differently.
An Economic Times report claims Uber and Rapido held talks back in May to combine their India operations, coinciding with a visit to the country by Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. During that trip, Khosrowshahi reportedly met government officials and business partners, and sat down separately with Rapido cofounder and CEO Aravind Sanka and other senior executives at the company to explore what a tie-up might look like.
Uber’s original pitch, per the report, was to bring the two businesses together under Rapido’s management — notable in itself, since it would’ve meant the global ride-hailing giant ceding operational control of its India business to a domestic rival roughly a third its age. Rapido apparently wasn’t interested in that framing. It came back with a very different proposal: acquiring Uber’s India operations outright in a cash-and-stock deal, with Uber left holding a minority stake in the combined company. That counter-offer, according to the report, is where things fell apart — Uber wasn’t willing to exit India or hand over control, and a source told ET the two sides were essentially negotiating different deals entirely, one a merger, the other something closer to an acquisition.
Rapido’s response to the report, when Inc42 put it to them, was flat denial — the company says there’s no truth to the speculation and that it remains focused on building its India business independently. Uber, for its part, declined to engage with the specifics at all, saying only that it doesn’t comment on market speculation or private conversations with industry participants — the kind of non-denial that tends to fuel a story rather than close it.
Whatever actually happened behind closed doors, the timing is worth sitting with. Uber has been pushing hard into India’s two-wheeler segment lately, a market Rapido currently dominates — the company just expanded Uber Bike into 100 more cities, taking its bike-taxi footprint past 220 cities nationwide, spanning smaller markets like Jammu, Tirunelveli, and Silchar. Rapido, meanwhile, is estimated to control somewhere between 60% and 75% of India’s two-wheeler ride-hailing volume and roughly a fifth to a third of the four-wheeler cab segment, backed by a war chest it topped up in May with $240 million in fresh capital as part of a larger $730 million round that valued the company at $3 billion.
Merger talk or not, the underlying pressure both companies are responding to is real. India’s ride-hailing market is projected to nearly quadruple by the early 2030s, and that growth is pulling in a crowd well beyond the usual names — automakers like VinFast entering through its Green SM electric ride-hailing brand, and newer, leaner platforms like Bharat Taxi, Trevel, and Plush Miles all chasing a slice of the same pie, mostly by undercutting incumbents on commissions and leaning into EV fleets. In a market getting that crowded, a combination between the two biggest non-Ola players would have reshaped the competitive map overnight — which may be exactly why, denial or not, this is a story worth watching rather than dismissing outright.
Source: Malik Times
