Grab’s next bold move
Few years ago, Uber and Grab – the world’s leading ride-hailing apps – were welcomed by the Vietnamese young people with curiosity and excitement. The unpleasantness caused by “snobby” traditional taxi drivers refusing to pick up passenger whenever they want or charging city-round cab fares for a short distance suddenly is promptly addressed by a click.
Developing so promptly that Uber and Grab are then “isolated” by the jealousy of competitors. Definitely, no one wants to be beaten by their competitors. A number of regulations on “taxi labelling”, “without taxi labelling”, no taxi entry street with other vehicles etc. are being continuously issued. Within only a year, countless numbers of workshops and referendums on “e-hailing taxi” had been conducted.
However, let us just skip over those long-established arguments over e-hailing versus traditional taxi and give Grab a compliment on their bold move in forming partnership with competitors to open up a new opportunity of public transportation development for Vietnamese.
From the philosophy
“Moving forward together”
The Grab’s story started in 2012 when a group of friends got together for a tea chat. Like any Southeast Asian, they started talking about difficulties in catching a taxi.
Afterwards, they did do a thing which others did not dare to do.
They decided to find solutions for inconvenience in public transportation, which gave rise to Grab (precursor known as MyTeksi). The seemingly simple purpose had then quickly become something greater – to make Southeast Asia a better place with convenient transportation.
Indeed, the e-hailing firm Grab has gained in popularity in many countries in the region after just a few years. The Grab’s rapid growth mostly comes from its technological edge which enables people in many markets to address their commute issues.
The Grab’s rapid growth therefore has made it become a serious competitor which other traditional taxi companies consider as their “archenemy”. Despite clearly understanding that e-hailing firms have performed better to commuters, traditional taxi companies don’t easily give up.
Vinasun lawsuit against Grab is the last straw for irrational fight from economics perspective but it is almost a certainty to be able to find a common ground
So said so done, Grab immediately formed partnership with the competitors amidst fierce competition among parties. They even do it in the middle of prolonged lawsuit with a leading traditional taxi company in Vietnam.
GrabTaxi, one of the services which has just been integrated in the Grab app registered with Ministry of Industry and Trade, is an e-commerce platform app with nationwide scope of work and legally operates in accordance with Decree No. 52/2013/NĐ-CP issued by the Government on e-commerce. GrabTaxi services don’t interfere into taxi fares and operation of taxi and taxi drivers. GrabTaxi fares is shown in the Grab app for commuters reference which is calculated based on taxi fares by kilometer of other taxi companies and expected distance. Commuters will pay the exact amount shown in kilometer of taxi upon arrival.
To summarize, Grab’s forming partnership with competitors allows them to use the million dollar technological platform to develop together. A number of traditional taxi companies immediately have grasped Grab’s hands. Up to now, many taxi companies have cooperated with Grab such as Taxi Blue, Kontum; Taxi Hung Nhan, Gia Lai; Taxi Quyet Tien, Buon Me Thuot; Taxi 19/5, Binh Dinh; Taxi Gia Minh, Nam Dịnh …
With regards to forming partnership with competitors, Jerry Lim excitedly revealed that the firm wants to share the technological creativity that Grab has widely developed, contributing to enhance operating performance of taxi and contractual taxi cooperated in a common platform, and liaise passengers with taxi or contractual taxi, and enable convenient and prompt ride hailing.
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