India Uber president to head Asia Pacific operations

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Uber’s India President Amit Jain has been promoted to head of the global ride-hailing firm’s Asia Pacific operations, which includes Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong and India, the company said in an emailed statement. Jain will continue to lead India until a successor is found, an Uber spokeswoman said in the statement. India is one of Uber’s fastest-growing markets and accounts for 10 percent of its total rides. The move comes weeks after Uber sold its business in Southeast Asia to rival Grab Holdings, which gave rise to speculation about talks on a similar merger in the high stakes India market, where it competes with local rival Ola. Uber and Ola are both backed by a common investor, SoftBank, which pushed behind the scenes for the merger between Uber and Grab. But it is not clear that SoftBank intends to spur another consolidation in India, an under-penetrated market with a population of 1.3 billion people. Uber has said it will double down on its investments in India and, while it is open to having conversations with potential partners, it had no interest in entering into minority deals in India or any other country it operates in.