Uber drivers in Banglore makes around 50K rupees profit each month. This is higher than many government jobs and similar to the salary of many software developers in India.
I've only ever ridden Uber over a period of two weeks - the last two. In India, in Pune.
The drivers more or less all complained about Uber cutting the incentives and margins, stating that they are making a low amount of money. Ola seems to be a contender that many local drivers flock to?
Yes, these drivers might've lied to me. I'm just putting this anecdote against your statement of 50k INR of profit/income: That's certainly not the impression I got when I had discussions about just that on my rides.
Depends on whether the drivers owned their cars or were renting. Many drivers rent from the actual car owners, they won't make much. The few who own their cars do well out of Uber.
So I'm a white German IT guy in a suit in a car in India.
There's no reason to believe that I'm going to be competing with them anytime soon, nor is it likely that I have any locals that I'd praise Uber to if you pick me up from a hotel.
50K is the profit. An Uber driver in Banglore typically makes 120K+ rupees in a month. I got to know this while I was talking to an Uber driver during the ride.
Once again, you do not take the long term costs of car ownership into account. 50K might be the short term profit but certainly not the long term one.
And that's OK, Uber is built on people forgetting how much faster their car loses its value if driven so much and how much more large scale, expensive repairs will crop up. But not right now. It's a good trick but it's a trick and it's not in the driver's favor.
