While Uber is shuttering its buses in India, Rapido is cashing in on bikes
How the story of India’s mobility market is being rewritten, two wheels at a time.
Uber quietly ended its shuttle bus services in Mumbai and Hyderabad this week, citing low demand and rising costs. It's not the first time the company has pulled back in India — food delivery, auto rickshaws in Delhi, and now buses have all faced the axe when they didn’t scale fast enough.
In Mumbai alone, Uber is taking 250 to 300 buses off the road. Another 150 to 200 are being pulled from Hyderabad. That’s hundreds of daily routes gone just months after launch.
But while Uber scales down, Rapido, the Bangalore-based bike taxi startup, is doing the exact opposite. It just announced its first-ever profitability, and that’s after clocking 33 million app downloads in 2024 (via Appfigures), beating both Uber (21M) and Ola (19M). In a country where affordability, speed, and flexibility win, Rapido seems to be playing the right game.
The secret sauce here is a subscription model that flips the script. Instead of taking a cut from every ride like Uber does, Rapido charges drivers as little as ₹9 (about $0.11) per day. That means drivers keep 100% of fares and stick around longer. It's a move so effective that even Uber and others are testing similar models now.
Kelechi Edeh
But this isn’t just about pricing. It’s also about product-market fit. Where Uber bets on buses and cars, Rapido built its business on India’s most common ride — the motorcycle. With over 4.3 million rides daily across 250+ cities, Rapido has embedded itself into India’s transportation fabric in a way global players still struggle to replicate.
And the timing couldn’t be better. In July 2025, India rolled out national guidelines recognizing bike taxis, ending years of regulatory grey zones that once forced Rapido to halt operations in places like Karnataka. Now, it’s full steam ahead, with plans to expand into smaller towns and even new verticals like food delivery.
So, while Uber's shuttle services will continue to operate only in Delhi and Kolkata thanks to their bus networks, Rapido seems to be winning by thinking small — small cities, small vehicles, small fees.
And in a market projected to hit $44 billion by 2032, Uber shuttle retreat in major Indian cities is a clear reminder that scale alone doesn’t guarantee survival. Without the right model for local roads, even the biggest players can get left behind.
Loy Okezie
