Taxicabs of the United States area. The president of United Cab discourages his drivers from carrying firearms, instead advising them to accelerate the car and crash into a lamppost or even a police car if they are threatened with a gun. Uber is a major competitor to taxi companies, providing on-demand for-hire car service through a smartphone app in many US cities. Uber services are generally treated as black-car services from a legal standpoint and are not generally regulated under Taxi laws. This can cause friction with both local governments and taxi companies. In June 2015, the city council voted unanimously to increase taxi fares;
Grab (company) claimed to be doing one booking every eight seconds, or 10,000 a day, representing sixteen-fold growth within a year. In November 2017, Grab reached one billion rides with 66 concurrent rides in one second across seven countries, occupying 97% market share in the third-party taxi hailing market and 72% in the private vehicle hailing market. The company also claimed to have two million driving partners, 68 million mobile app downloads, and 3.5 million daily rides. In April 2014, the company secured more than US$10 million in series A funding from Vertex Venture Holdings (a subsidiary of Singapore sovereign wealth fund