'Mars ki sawaari...': Ashneer Grover takes potshots at Uber India's 2022 roundup report

Ashneer Grover, the former BharatPe founder, who is known to not mince words on social media, made Uber India his latest target to ridicule as the taxi hailing platform's country head posted a report on its 2022 roundup.

On Wednesday, Ashneer Grover on Wednesday reacted to Uber's claims of having driven 4,5 billion km -- the distance between Earth and Neptune -- in India this year. The TVF Pitchers' judge joked about the claim made in Uber's annual report with a mock Twitter poll.

"As per Uber - they made trips as long as Milky Way in India. So Mars ki sawaari aap kiske saath karna chahenge (So which company would you pick to travel to Mars)?" he tweeted. The options included Elon Musk's SpaceX and other two options were mocking the platform's alleged inefficiency in enforcing non-cancellation by drivers. 

"Uber trips during the year covered as many as 4.5 billion kilometers, which is the distance from Earth all the way to Neptune, the last planet in the solar system since Pluto got kicked out of the team," the company said in an official statement.

When Uber India's president Prabhjeet Singh shared the report on LinkedIn, stating that Uber had covered "4.5 billion km or the distance to the last planet on the solar system", Ashneer Grover questioned the need to bring in the solar system and Milky Way into the report when they should have addressed cancellations and bad ride experiences instead. "Kisi ne Milky Way aur moon ki Uber thodi na pakadni hain," wondered Grover in Hindi. Grover also mocked Uber for hiring PR people who are divorced from reality. "Matlab I don't know what generation PR folks you guys have," wrote the author of the recently-released "Doglapan: The Hard Truth about Life and Start-Ups".

"Who needs to take an Uber to the Moon? What customers have been facing are cancellations and bad cab experiences -- address them head-on. You guys are going down the same path as WhatsApp with these messages," he wrote sharing Singh's post which has since been deleted.

When Grover realised that Singh had deleted his LinkedIn post, he said that the company's country managers appeared to care more about their image than the business. "Arre waah - 100 feedback comments aa gaye to Prabhjeet Singh (Uber India Country Manager) ne apni post hi delete kar di. Country Managers seem more keen to manage their own image than their business," Grover wrote on LinkedIn.