Even those of us who own a car occasionally use Uber, other PHV (minicab) services or conventional taxis. Uber has become the dominant player by not just having a slick service with low charges but by spending a lot on promotion. Indeed they have been very successful at consistently losing money despite avoiding local taxes and they still managed to recently list the company on the stock market at a valuation of US$82 billion!

Lyft is one competitor they have in the USA, but there is another one launched in the UK named Kapten (see www.kapten.com/uk ). This is a French company backed by Daimler and BMW. One of their advertising themes seems to emphasise that they will be paying VAT in the UK, unlike Uber, but is that a good idea when that surely means customers will be paying more as a result? But Kapten is still claiming to be cheaper than competitors and they are offering some 50% discounts to attract initial business.

They are also looking for drivers to support the new service with some promotional offerings.

So far as users of such services are concerned, having more competitors, and having services where the supplier loses money doing so can’t be bad for the consumers. So we salute Kapten for wanting to join the traffic jams in central London.

Roger Lawson

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