Why Uber's losing out to locals in Southeast Asia

Why Uber's losing out to locals in Southeast Asia

A user scans for an available vehicle using the Uber app on an Apple Inc. iPhone 5 smartphone in this arranged photograph in London, U.K., on Friday, May 30, 2014. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

By any measure, the April 2016 decision by Uber Technologies Inc. to sell its China operations to rival Didi Chuxing was a defeat. The brief but spectacular battle between the two ride-hailing behemoths had cost Uber at least $2 billion and earned it little more than the enmity of the Chinese government. The only silver lining seemed to be that Uber, free of an expensive price war, could focus its resources on other markets, including rapidly growing Southeast Asia.

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