Toyota's Uber stake halved

Japan's Toyota Motor Corp slashed its stake in Uber Technologies Inc by about half after the ride-hailing giant spun off a core unit of its partnership, the self-driving unit,media reported.

"The development of vehicles related to autonomous driving is one of Toyota's main goals for investing in Uber," Toyota spokesman Shiori Hashimoto said in a statement. He added, though, that Toyota remained committed to its alliance with Uber.

Image credit: Toyota

On June 23, Toyota disclosed in a regulatory filing that it held 5.13 million Uber shares in the fiscal year ended March 31, half of the 10.25 million shares in the same period a year earlier.Toyota's stake in Uber is now worth 22.4 billion yen ($165 million), down from 61.9 billion yen a year ago."Toyota's continued stake in Uber is part of our goal of maintaining a partnership and good relationship with Uber," Hashimoto said.

Toyota invested $500 million in Uber in 2018 to jointly develop self-driving cars.However, in 2020, in order to achieve profitability goals, Uber sold its self-driving business to Aurora Innovation.

Aurora said in March that the company and Toyota had begun testing self-driving fleets in Texas with two safety operators and no passengers on board.Uber had no immediate comment.

For now, Uber, after recognizing its limited potential for profitable expansion in India, has explored several options for handling the company's Indian ride-hailing services, including stock swaps with local companies and even exiting the Indian market.An Uber spokesman, however, denied the withdrawal, saying the company would still operate in India and continue on a hiring spree.