Uber may have reached a tipping point in New York City - and that's bad news for taxis
- Morgan Stanley Adam Jonas calculates that Uber now has more "rider-share" than cabs in NYC.
- The value of an NYC taxi medallion has plunged.
- Uber's business is growing in NY while taxis are on the decline.
Morgan Stanley auto analyst Adam Jonas published a research note on Monday in which he assessed some trends for raid-hailing-services and taxi patronage in the city that never sleeps.
For traditional cabs, the story isn't good.
"We believe that Uber now has a larger share of the mobility 'pie' in New York City than yellow taxis," he wrote, adding that "trips/day, vehicles, and drivers have all increased substantially [year-over-year] across the board for rideshare apps, and decreased [year-over-year] for taxis."
But perhaps the most startling data point that Jonas grappled with was the plummeting value of an NYC taxi medallion - in practice, a chunk of plastic affixed to a cab's hood, and in effect a license to operate a taxi in the city:
That's a stunning drop and tells us more about how Uber, primarily, has completely changed how New Yorkers get around.