JEDDAH: A team from Uber led by Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi rang the opening bell on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday as the taxi app company’s shares began trading for the first time.

After pricing at $45 for the initial public offering — translating to a market value of $82 billion — Uber fell to $42.02 as the market opened, a drop of about 6 percent.

The decline, in a volatile session on Wall Street, was a disappointing start for a much-heralded offering that is one of the biggest IPOs ever. Nevertheless, the price rallied in later trading and many analysts believe its future lies in the longer term.

“Uber has established itself as the clear number one player in the ridesharing industry and is paving a similar road to what Amazon did to transform retail/ecommerce, and Facebook did for social media,” said Daniel Ives of Wedbush Securities.

Uber recently acquired its Middle East competitor Careem for $3.1 billion. The company’s worldwide reach is one of the reasons Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), bought a 4 percent stake in Uber worth about $3.4 billion, PIF managing director Yasir Othman Al-Rumayyan said before the IPO.

He dismissed fears that Uber could face the same difficulties as its US rival Lyft, whose stock fell by about 20 percent after its market debut. “Uber is totally different from Lyft,” Al-Rumayyan, told CNBC. “Of course it’s a ride sharing company, but it’s a ride sharing company not only in the US but all over the world.”

Uber envisions becoming the “Amazon of transport” in a future where people share instead of owning vehicles. If all goes to plan, commuters could ride an e-scooter to a transit station, take a train, then grab an e-bike or e-scooter to complete a journey using the Uber smartphone app.