Uber, the US ride-hailing company, is introducing a freight platform in Germany. With this, the company will take on local technology startups in a race to grab a share of Europe’s $500 billion trucking market.
Germany is Uber Freight’s second European market to go live after the Netherlands. The company will expand elsewhere in Europe once the new German operations start to run smoothly.
In the United States, Uber Freight is connecting 48 states and generating over $125 million in quarterly revenues.
Uber will be competing with local players like Berlin-based startup sennder, which already has a wider presence in Europe.
Uber and sennder target to digitalize an industry dominated by firms running 10 or fewer trucks and to improve efficiency, as the trucks are empty for 21% of the distance they travel.
Nicolaus Schefenacker, Co-Founder of sennder, said, “The key to getting a lot of value out of this industry is understanding how to use those empty kilometers.”
Unlike Uber’s food-delivery service or its ride-hailing app, Uber Freight will operate as a middle-man in a market with an established pricing structure.
Uber Freight will be making money from the margin between the price paid by the shipper and the amount it pays on to the trucker, insulating it from the type of complaints made by many ride-hailing drivers who say they struggle to earn a decent income.
