The deal is the latest international retreat for Uber, which has also sold off its businesses in China and Russia.
Uber is giving up on Southeast Asia.
The US ride hailing company is selling its business in the region to local rival Grab, the companies said in a statement Monday .
They didn’t disclose the deal’s price tag but said Uber will end up with a 27.5% stake in Singapore-based Grab under the agreement.
This is just the latest international retreat for the US company.
In 2016, Uber sold its China operations to rival Didi Chuxing in a landmark deal that ended its quest to be a major player in one of the world’s largest markets.
Last year, Uber also threw in the towel in Russia, ceding its operations there to rival Yandex in exchange for a 37% stake in the combined company.
The withdrawals highlight the limits of Uber’s aggressive efforts to dominate ride-hailing in dozens of countries around the world.
“One of the potential dangers of our global strategy is that we take on too many battles across too many fronts and with too many competitors,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in an email to Uber staff about the Grab deal.
Selling out “puts us in a position to compete with real focus and weight in the core markets where we operate, while giving us valuable and growing equity stakes in a number of big and important markets where we don’t,” he said.
Khosrowshahi took over as CEO in August, replacing Travis Kalanick who was forced out by major Uber shareholders after a series of crises.
Uber has been trying to compete with Grab in a bunch of fast-growing markets across Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.
