I find this rather surprising. I used to work for Hailo, and we failed mostly due to bad business decision (focusing way too much on regulations/instead of disrupting the taxi industry we tried to partner) with way-way less funding ($100 mil in all - at the time less than 25) we built an app of such high quality, almost every driver or passenger we talked to (tens of thousands) said while Uber's network is superior, they wish they could use Hailo's app because it's just faster, nicer, feels more polished and less buggy.
It is not rocket science, really. I don't think it's about tech quality. As our case proved, it's all about the extent of the network - people want a (cheap) ride, if they get it, they are happy.