How big is Uber’s potential market? Grab an envelope; preferably a big one. An average Londoner or New Yorker spends $238 on taxis each year, data from the City of New York and London’s Licensed Taxi Drivers Association show. The potential customer base is – at the very least – everyone living in a big city, or 1.5bn people. That’s $357bn in revenue. Uber, a ridesharing app that allows customers to flag down drivers with the tap of a finger, takes 20 per cent of each ride. If profit margins settle at 10 per cent, the global profit pool is about $7bn. If Uber can capture just half this market, its $17bn valuation is five times earnings. Cheap!
Uber的潛在市場有多大？拿張舊信封來，最好是大號的。紐約和倫敦的持照出租車司機協會的數據顯示，一名普通倫敦人或紐約人每年打車的花費平均是238美元。潛在客戶基礎，往少了算，是住在大城市的每個居民，即15億人。那意味著3570億美元的營收。讓客戶點點手指就能招來出租車的拼車軟件Uber，單次旅程提取20%的費用。如果利潤率穩定在10%，全球的利潤池約達70億美元。如果Uber能占領這個市場的一半，其170億美元的估值只是盈利的5倍。便宜！