Is Uber.com about to go all out to challenge the mighty Amazon.com?

Uber, now not only a generic ride-hailing household name but also profitable, is seeing its courier business growing leap and bound. It is transporting goods on behalf of the likes of Walmart, Apple, McDonald’s, Sephora and Tesco.

“Uber’s technology can allow retailers of all sizes to compete with Amazon. While they are global leader in e-commerce, we believe Uber can be the global leader in local commerce,” Dara Khosrowshahi, chief executive, told the Financial Times.

As Uber is able to deliver products from brands – it will be in a position to direct some shoppers away from Amazon. The latter, of course, has a gigantic head-start in number of customers, warehousing, logistics and delivery capabilities to be of much concerned with much smaller Uber, at least momentarily. 

It may not be a business battle of the “David and Goliath” type but more analogous to Communist China’s rural to urban strategy. Uber has just sealed a deal with autonomous vehicle startup Avride to use its delivery robots and autonomous vehicles in the US.

Avride will increase Uber’s ability to manage time and cost of a delivery to the precision, increasing its strengths to engage customers which, of course, will eventually lure in suppliers. As consumers we know that e-commerce delivery costs have much rooms to come down if there are more options on the table! 

And we shouldn’t forget that Uber has a history to overbearing ambition and risk-taking.

As the competition in services between the two titans unfold, it brings to mind the manifestation of “superapps” – which prevail in Asia led by China’s Wechat. It might have started out as messaging and social media platform but now embodied with payment, shopping, gaming, booking and government services which many Chinese can’t do without.

Another is Alipay (China) with services including payments, insurance, wealth management, food delivery, ride-hailing.

South East Asia boasts superapps in the names of Grab, Gojek, and Line. India has Paytm, whereas Kakao dominates S Korea.

They are closely watching Uber versus Amazon. By the way, Uber remains a shareholder of yet-to-achieve sustained profitability – SE Asia-based Grab.