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India’s Taxi War: Uber vs. Ola

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8 years ago

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India's Taxi War: Uber vs. Ola

India’s Taxi War: Uber vs. Ola

In the cities where Uber is permitted by municipalities to operate, the ensuing battle is typically between the massive tech giant and the local taxi companies. However, in India the competitive landscape is much different: a domestic tech company has an early head start with a soaring market share. In this case, for Uber, the stakes couldn’t be much higher.

India is the second most populous country in the world, but it is expected to surpass China as early as 2022 in this category. More importantly, the country will surely be an economic powerhouse and a center of global growth in the foreseeable future. India does have its challenges, but in a previous chart we showed that it will rival China for overall economic growth in the coming decades.

So who is bold enough to challenge Uber for the massive Indian rideshare market?

That company is Ola Cabs and so far it has raised five rounds of funding, with the most recent being for a hefty $210 million in October 2014. The company was founded in 2010 by Bhavish Aggarwal and provides 750,000 daily rides in the Indian market. Ola also recently acquired a major domestic competitor (TaxiForSure) for a sum of $200 million in cash and stock.

So far, Uber has committed $1 billion from investors to ensure its dominance in India, but currently the company only brings in about 200,000 daily rides. Uber has six years of experience of winning these types of battles: against Lyft, against local taxi companies, in courts, and in the public relations sphere.

India’s size and fragmented transit system also means that there could be room for two or more rideshare companies to co-exist in the future. Since ridesharing is still in its infancy in the market, there is plenty of room to still grow for both companies: but the battle could be heated.

Lastly, for fun: here’s a graphic comparing Uber’s size in major markets against the legions of all taxi companies operating:

Original graphic by: Tech in Asia

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Charting Grand Theft Auto: GTA’s Budget and Revenues

Dive into the GTA budget through the years, with GTA VI set to be the most expensive video game of all time.

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December 5, 2023

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A cropped chart comparing the GTA budget and revenue across three game titles.

Charting Grand Theft Auto: GTA’s Budget and Revenues

Over 10 years since the launch of Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V), the second most-sold video game in history, Rockstar Games has announced its sequel GTA VI will be “coming 2025.”

As the anticipation only grows for this next big entry in the franchise, we take a look at the GTA budget through the years. How much have the last two games cost to make, how much have they earned, and how do they compare with the latest entry?

Data for this visualization comes from Statista, TweakTown, and Twitch Metrics.

How Much Has GTA VI Cost to Make?

The GTA franchise has grown enormously in scale from humble beginnings as a top-down, 2D video game in 1997. Fifteen installments later, the upcoming release, GTA VI, is estimated to be the most expensive video game to be made yet.

Here’s a look at how much GTA VI and the last two major releases cost, and how much revenue they’ve earned as of August 2023.

YearTitleProduction Costs ($)Revenue ($)Copies Sold
2025 (est.)GTA VI$2B (rumored)N/AN/A
2013GTA V $265M$7.7B185M
2008GTA IV$100M$2B25M

In 2008, GTA IV cost around $100 million—already a budget that rivalled big Hollywood releases. However with 25 million copies sold, the game earned nearly $2 billion—a five-fold return on its production cost.

Five years later, GTA V (2013) cost more than $200 million to make—twice GTA IV’s budget. A decade after its release, GTA V has generated close to $8 billion, with hundreds of millions in annual revenue from subscriptions and in-game purchases—a model that its successor is sure to follow.

In fact, subscription fees and in-game purchases represented 78% of Take-Two Interactive’s (parent of GTA developer Rockstar Games) revenues in 2023.

Analysts estimate the to-be-released GTA VI’s costs at $2 billion, including marketing and other expenses. A massive open-world (set in the Miami-inspired “Vice City”), cutting edge graphics, and a reportedly brand-new game engine are all reasons for the game’s outsized budget.

For comparison, the current most expensive games to have been made include Red Dead Redemption 2 (also by Rockstar) and Star Citizen, both reportedly with a $500 million budget.

Meanwhile, Take-Two Interactive shares are up more than 50% for the year.

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