In the nascent ride-hailing industry in the U.S., Uber is the company to beat: Valued at a staggering $62.5 billion, Uber made an estimated nearly $2 billion in revenue last year, and recently even became profitable in this country.
Uber’s biggest American rival is Lyft, which boasts a $5.5 billion valuation and made nearly $800 million last year, according to Bloomberg. But Gett, an Israeli ride-hailing service, tells Fortune it’s catching up fast—particularly in the New York, the ultra competitive market where Gett has explicitly advertised that it “is objectively better than Uber” in its campaign slogans.
In an interview, Gett CEO Shahar Waiser tells Fortune that the company’s revenues have tripled annually to $500 million. While Gett is in 57 cities across the world, its only U.S. market is New York, which it entered nearly a year ago. It’s also profitable in Europe, where it is the market leader, Waiser says. While he expects the company will lose money in New York for the next two to three years as it competes aggressively for market share, Gett’s overall business will be profitable by December of this year, he says.
As a relative newcomer in New York, Gett’s growth there also shines a light on the rapid expansion of taxi apps in the city. Gett has a fleet of more than 5,880 drivers in New York, and is gaining fast on Lyft, Waiser says. A person close to Lyft, however, says the company has 40% more drivers in the city than Gett, or more than 8,200. Unlike Uber, both Lyft and Gett allow tipping.