An Uber withdrawal would save money for both startups, and would improve the US company's profitability ahead of its planned initial public offering in 2019. Grab, led by co-founder and CEO Anthony Tan, has already begun preliminary talks to acquire Uber operations and wants a deal, said the people, asking not to be named because the matter is private. There's a similar situation in India. Uber competes in the country against Ola, which is the leading local player and also backed by SoftBank. Uber and Ola have also begun talks about a deal, according to one of people. A merger in India may face opposition from regulators however, given a lack of viable rivals in ride-hailing. A spokesman for Uber declined to comment on any speculation about negotiations with Grab or Ola. Mr Entwistle said there are no talks that he knew of. For Uber, the trade-off is scale. If it pulls out of markets such as India and Indonesia, that will improve profitability immediately - but it would sacrifice long-term growth.