Daimler to create Europe’s biggest taxi-hailing business

German car maker's app myTaxi to merge with British-based outfit, serving 70 million passengers but will utilise cab firms unlike Uber.

Daimler's taxi-hailing business will merge with Hailo to create new leader in Europe's cab-hailing market. Sascha Schuermann / AFP

Daimler’s myTaxi said it will will merge with British rival Hailo in an all-share deal, creating Europe’s largest smartphone-based taxi-hailing business.

Unlike the US-based ride hailing start-up Uber, which established itself to compete against taxi companies, the new company will operate using taxi firms.

It is the latest push by traditional carmakers to enter the taxi ride hailing services market dominated by Uber and other technology companies.

The companies declined to disclose financial terms.

“It’s a paper deal. Daimler will own 60 per cent of the new entity and the stakeholders in Halio will own 40 per cent,” said the Halio chief executive Andrew Pinnington, who will be the chief executive of the combined company.

The merged entity, which will operate under the mytaxi brand, will have 70 million passengers and 100,000 registered taxi drivers in more than 50 cities across nine countries in Europe, the companies said.

In similar deals this year, Volkswagen took a US$300 million stake in Gett and General Motors invested $500m in Lyft.

Hailo, which operates in Britain, Ireland and Spain, will combine with myTaxi, which is available in Austria, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.

The combined company will be headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.

The MyTaxi founder Niclaus Mewes will take a seat on the supervisory board and in addition he will become the managing director of Daimler Mobility Services.

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