Beat Says Goodbye to Mexico, Latin America

The ride-hailing application Beat surprised its users this Tuesday, informing that the company will no longer operate in Mexico and the rest of Latin America from Nov. 9, 2022 at midnight.

“Due to a clear strategic decision of the shareholders to focus on its core European markets, our shareholders have made the decision to stop investing in the Latin American region, where Beat operates,” the company said in a statement.

Founded in Greece 11 years ago, Beat arrived in Mexico in February 2019, initially only in Mexico City, Monterrey and Guadalajara and later expanding operations to the rest of the country. Beat also operates in Colombia, Argentina, Peru and Chile, but the app will also stop working in those countries at midnight on Wednesday.

“After today’s official internal announcement, we will now focus on providing the best support to all of the impacted employees, as well as notifying our customers and partners of the intention to close our operations,” the company added.

Beat’s exit will leave the path clear for Uber and Didi, which will continue to battle in the competitive Mexican ride-hailing market. Beat stood out in Mexico by being the first company to offer fully electric services: Beat Tesla and Beat Zero. “We became pioneers of electromobility in Mexico and Latin America. Both services have the highest quality standards regarding passenger experience because we own the fleet and the drivers are hired and highly trained,” said to MBN Enrique Mendoza, General Manager, Beat México.

While the Beat Tesla service used premium EVs, it was the app’s most expensive choice. Beat Zero was launched later to make electromobility more accessible to the general public. The company offered fully-electric trips to clients through a private fleet of JAC Ej7 vehicles. The launch of Beat Zero generated over 700 employment positions between drivers and administrative jobs and Beat’s JAC fleet represented over 15 percent of the EVs sold in Mexico during 2021, as reported by MBN.

Besides the official statement published on LinkedIn and an email that Beat users received informing them that their service will no longer be available starting on Nov. 9, 2022, local executives have not made any official comments.

“It has been a great and rewarding experience for all of us at Beat, working together on our joint mission to develop seamless mobility for a safe and sustainable urban life. We innovated, grew, laughed and enjoyed every moment of this experience,” said the company.