Uber's No-Holds-Barred Expansion Strategy Fizzles in Germany
The ride-hailing company has retreated from several German cities. Its withdrawal from Frankfurt offers a case study of what went wrong.
FRANKFURT - Uber is rapidly expanding its ride-hailing operations across the globe. But here in this city of 690,000 - slightly less than the population of San Francisco, Uber's hometown - the company recently did something unusual: It retreated.
In early November, Uber shut its small office in Frankfurt's centuries-old city center after just 18 months of operation, mothballing the online platform that had let people in the city hail rides through a smartphone app. The pullback was spurred in part by drivers like Hasan Kurt, the owner of a local licensed taxi business, who had refused to work with the American service.