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Mytaxi, Hailo merging

July 26, 2016

Daimler's ride-hailing Mytaxi and British rival Hailo are willing to merge as both companies take on US-based Uber. The new entity will operate in over 50 cities to become Europe's largest taxi network.

https://p.dw.com/p/1JVtp
Taxi-hailing app
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

Mytaxi of Daimler, Germany, and Britain's Hailo confirmed Tuesday they'd merge in an all-share deal, creating Europe's biggest smartphone-based cab-hailing business.

Unlike ride-hailing startup Uber, which established itself to compete against taxi companies, the merged entity will operate using existing taxi firms.

"Daimler will own 60 percent after the merger, and the stakeholders in Hailo will own 40 percent," Hailo CEO Andrew Pinnington said in a statement. He will also be the chief executive of the merged unit to be headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.

Making a fresh start

The new company will have 100,000 registered taxi drivers in over 50 cities across nine countries in Europe.

Back in 2014, Hailo logged a net loss of 21.7 million pounds (25.8 million euros, $28.4 million), with newer figures for 2015 not available yet.

The British company was also active in the US for a while, but withdrew from the market in 2014 because of fierce competition from Uber and Lyft.

hg/sri (Reuters, dpa)