UBER STRIPS DOWN ITS APP TO RAMP UP IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

IN THE US and Europe, Uber’s issues are more of the lawyerly type. It fights to maintain surge pricing, its status as a platform and not an employer, and its right to operate in certain cities and airports. In growing markets—places like India, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa—its challenges are a bit more basic. How can it connect riders, especially those operating old, slow, and data-limited phones, to drivers?
Today, Uber announced the release of a new app, Uber Lite, to help answer that essential question in essential markets. Uber Lite is like Uber, but smaller and less razzle-dazzle-y. At 5 MB (about the size of two photos) and with 300-millisecond response times, this is an app built with older, data-limited Androids in mind, and for places where internet connections are spotty-to-nonexistent. For now, Uber Lite will only be available in three Indian markets (Jaipur, Hyderabad, and Delhi), but will expand to other countries before the end of the year.