Daimler and BMW are claiming "dynamic growth" for their joint ventures' mobility services with nearly 90m customers, up 44% since start of 2019.
The automakers launched the Your Now joint ventures in February 2019 and now offer car sharing, ride hailing, parking, charging and multimodal platforms in 1,300 cities worldwide.
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The next phase of expansion will be focused on profitable growth. The services offered will continue to be tailored to customer needs and clustered into three pillars: Free Now, Share Now and Park Now & Charge Now.
The introduction of a new umbrella organisation from 1 January 2020 will support efficient management of these three pillars.
Rainer Feurer, BMW's investment chief, said: "We firmly believe combining the services into three pillars will strengthen the joint ventures' impact and focus in a highly competitive, fast-growing environment. Both shareholders are backing the Your Now business model and are determined to develop the joint ventures into a leading player in the mobility market."
Franz Reiner, CEO of Daimler Mobility, added: "We are setting the course for the Your Now joint ventures to achieve sustainable profitability. At the same time, partnerships are increasingly important to success in the marketplace and, in this respect, we are open to further stepping up growth."
Free Now (formerly mytaxi), which includes the taxi and ride-hailing services Free Now, Beat, Kapten and electric scooter service Hive, is heading for record earnings for 2019. The annual GMV run rate (gross merchandise volume; platform revenues) will reach more than EUR2bn, increasing the previous year's figure significantly. In 2019, trip volume was up 120% from 2018 and be almost 300m in 18 European and Latin American countries by the end of this year. Over 39m passengers took advantage of the services provided by 800,000 affiliated drivers. Growth was also driven in part by the highly successful launch of Beat in Mexico City and Kapten in London, as well as expansion of the Free Now car rental service Ride in Germany which allows customers to book a rental car with a licensed driver at a fixed rate.
Free Now is also firmly on track for growth in 2020. Additional mobility services, such as e-scooters, electric bikes, car-sharing and public transport will also be integrated into the app, alongside its core ride hailing business. This integration of multimodal mobility offerings builds on Reach Now's expertise in pooling several mobility services, with booking options, on a single platform. Reach Now services are currently used by 7m people in 20 cities worldwide. In the south of Germany, on demand ride sharing options have been expanded in conjunction with the Karlsruhe Transport Authority (KVV) in Ettlingen and the public transport company Stuttgarter Straßenbahnen (SSB) in Stuttgart. Reach Now will increasingly focus on the development of various mobility solutions, such as Mobility as a Service platforms and on demand products for and with cities and public transport companies.
The free floating car sharing provider Share Now, which has emerged from the two services car2go and DriveNow, has registered about 1m new customers since the start of the year. With the addition of Paris in January and Budapest in April, Share Now expanded its European footprint in 2019 to include two major capitals. In the future, the focus will be on cities that promise long term profitable growth. A review is currently under way to determine where reorganisation may be needed.
At the same time, the car sharing business is being systematically further developed and the successful integration of the two services continues. In Vienna, the new Share Now app enables car2go and DriveNow vehicles to be reserved and rented directly for the first time, with more cities to follow. The offering will be expanded, following a successful pilot phase that tested long term car sharing in Milan and Hamburg. Long term car sharing offers the option of renting Share Now vehicles for up to 14 days.
Charge Now is claimed to be Europe's leading aggregator of charging infrastructure and therefore a key driver for higher market penetration of electric mobility. Its charging services already provide access to 85% of the European charging network in 30 European markets. It comprises more than 130,000 charge points and contracts with around 400 charge point operators. In Germany alone, Charge Now achieves 98% market coverage. Charge Now is provided by Digital Charging Solutions which also develops individual, tailor made charging solutions for other automotive manufacturers and fleet operators.
Park Now lets customers use an app to search and pay for on- and off-road parking spaces. In 2019, Park Now further expanded its claimed leadership in digital parking solutions: 36m customers in 10 EU countries and the US use the services of the group. Park Now reached 230m transactions with its core brand, plus Parkmobile, RingGo and Parkline, in 2019. Park Now is proving itself as a partner for modern municipalities and has been recognised with the European Parking Award for emission based parking solutions in the UK.
