One company in Southeast Asia claims to have more than 95 per cent of the lucrative third-party taxi-hailing market. Not Uber, but Singapore-based Grab - and now the two firms are going head-to-head. "They are discovering that they have to actually learn from us," says Grab's cofounder Hooi Ling Tan.
Since launching as MyTeksi in 2012, Grab has racked up 24 million app downloads and collected more than 500,000 drivers across Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines, a success 33-year-old Tan says is down to local insight.
Tan and co-founder Anthony Tan (no relation) grew up in Malaysia, but didn't meet until they attended Harvard Business School in 2009. Both felt they understood the problems with trust and safety that had blighted taxi firms across Southeast Asia, so they made sure an option to share the route and number plate of the vehicle was added to Grab at an early stage. There are police record checks on drivers, too.
Tan credits the ability to gather data across the businesses with numerous competitive improvements. With GrabBike, which offers motorcycle rides, the firm can absorb local knowledge on back roads used by drivers to avoid traffic. Now its route-planning surpasses what's available via Google Maps, Tan says, and helps the firm keep tabs on its drivers. "We monitor GrabBike riders' speed to remind them to drive safely, resulting in a 35 per cent reduction in speeding in Jakarta [Indonesia's capital]."
On August 1, 2016, Uber sold its Chinese operations to Didi Chuxing (formerly Didi Kuaidi), China's largest taxi app firm, in exchange for a 20 per cent stake. Two weeks later, Grab announced a $350 million (£285m) series E round in which Didi Chuxing participated (a $750 million round followed in September). So is it a target for acquisition? Tan won't say, but she takes heart from Uber's struggles. "A cookie-cutter business approach won't work here."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
