IN THE US and Europe, Uber’s issues are more of the lawyerly type. It fights to maintain surge pricing, its status as a platform and not an employer, and its right to operate in certain cities and airports. In growing markets—places like India, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa—its challenges are a bit more basic. How can it connect riders, especially those operating old, slow, and data-limited phones, to drivers?
Today, Uber announced the release of a new app, Uber Lite, to help answer that essential question in essential markets. Uber Lite is like Uber, but smaller and less razzle-dazzle-y. At 5 MB (about the size of two photos) and with 300-millisecond response times, this is an app built with older, data-limited Androids in mind, and for places where internet connections are spotty-to-nonexistent. For now, Uber Lite will only be available in three Indian markets (Jaipur, Hyderabad, and Delhi), but will expand to other countries before the end of the year.