The fierce, sometimes vicious battle between Uber and Lyft in North America has proven to be too much for fellow ride-sharing company Hailo.
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According to The Verge, the British company announced that it will be pulling back operations to its home continent, despite what it says has been recent growth since its introduction in North America. The Financial Times reports that trying to remain profitable against the two large companies is not an endeavor worth continuing.
"It's not that we aren't growing there," chief executive Tom Barr said in an interview with The Financial Times. "But the profitability of the market and the type of environment [that other taxi-app companies] are setting up--both on the driver and passenger side--ceased to make sense to us."
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Hailo is different from its competitors in that it has no drivers of its own. Instead, the company links the user looking for a ride with a taxi or car service that will provide the transportation. Hailo launched in the U.S. in 2012, and expanded service to New York City last year. It has more than one million registered users servicing cities such as Boston, Montreal, and Chicago, but will scale back to focus on European service from this point forward.
Uber and Lyft have been battling for market share for years, with the competition often getting under-handed. Hailo's decision, though unfortunate for fans of the service, is likely a financially prudent one considering the difficult market.
