BMW, Daimler Car-Sharing Venture to Exit US, Focus on Europe Instead
December 19 2019 - 4:41AM
Dow Jones News
By Max Bernhard
Share Now, the car-sharing venture owned by BMW AG (BMW.XE) and
Daimler AG (DAI.XE), is exiting the U.S. and Canadian markets due
to competition, lack of infrastructure and rising operating
costs.
The company will focus on cities in Europe in the future but it
is also ceasing operations in London, Brussels and Florence because
of low adoption rates, it said late Wednesday on its website. The
changes are effective Feb. 29.
The decision to exit North America was due to the "volatile
state of the global mobility landscape," and "rising infrastructure
complexities facing North American transportation today--such as a
rapidly evolving competitive mobility landscape, the lack of
necessary infrastructure to support new technology (including
electric-vehicle car share) and rising operating costs," it
said.
Daimler and BMW decided to join forces last year to better be
able to compete with tech giants such as Uber Technologies Inc.
(UBER) and China's Didi Chuxing Technology Co.
"With Daimler's free cash flow under pressure from a number of
challenges in 2020 we believe it is highly rational that the new
management team are exiting investments with uncertain level of
future returns," Citi's Angus Tweedie said.
Share Now said it will now focus on the remaining 18 European
cities in which it operates.
Write to Max Bernhard at max.bernhard@dowjones.com;
@mxbernhard
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 19, 2019 04:26 ET (09:26 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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