Lyft on Sunday got better off its larger rival Uber for the very first time as it capitalized on the consumer's backlash against the ride-hailing major during the on-going immigration ban fiasco. The Sunday's victory in 'app download' numbers assumes huge importance for Lyft, as it is still an underdog in the ride hailing space.
According to App Annie, an app analytics firm, Lyft app overtook Uber app by a huge margin on Sunday for IOS downloads. To give an indication about how huge the margin was, the number of Lyft apps downloaded on Sunday was more than the download numbers recorded during past two weeks.
Lyft also witnessed a huge surge in downloads on Android platform, but Android download numbers were reportedly tad less than IOS. But Lyft would have been spared off this minor victory, had Uber responded to taxi strike at JFK in a much better way.
The taxi union had asked Uber and other taxi services to stop pick-up and drop service at the JFK airport on Sunday from 6 PM to 7 PM to show their protest against President Donald Trump's immigration ban on Muslims.
However, Uber decided to pay no heeds to the taxi call strike. Not only did it shrug off the call for strike, but slashed its prices during the stipulated time.
A good number of American citizens saw the ride hailing company's response as not only 'opportunistic,' but also a blatant disrespect to public sentiment against the immigration ban.
Not surprisingly, an anti-Uber campaign was started on Twitter in no time with #DeleteUber hashtag. The campaign openly asked people to delete the Uber app from its smart phone, which would obviously incur financial loss for the company.
It is been reported that several Hollywood stars helped in spreading the #DeleteUber campaign on their Twitter account, helping the campaign to get further traction.
It did not take long for Uber founder Travis Kalanick to swing into action for countering the Twitter campaign. He described Trump's decision to ban Muslim immigrants as "wrong and unjust," while his company announced that it would form $3 million crisis fund to cover the immigration fees of drivers affected by the ban.
However, Kalanick's PR campaign effort was too late and little kind of a thing, as thousands had already traded their loyalty to the rival Lyft.