On a rainy weekday morning in Singapore last month, using GrabTaxi’s service resulted in a vehicle arriving in about 15 minutes. By comparison, no cabs were available at the time when calling a taxi company’s automated call-center booking hot-line.
The assigned cab driver, Jenny Yeo, said the app has helped boost her income by about 15 percent.
“It reduces the amount of aimless cruising and allows me to better plan my routes,” Yeo, 45, said in an interview during the ride from a northern suburb to the city’s central business district. “You know where the passenger wants to go before they even get on. As a lady driver, you also feel safer because the passenger details are logged.”
Rising Demand
Tan predicts demand will continue to grow in Southeast Asia as smartphone usage increases in the region. Less than 6 percent of taxi rides are booked through mobile apps in Singapore, while in the Philippines and Indonesia, it’s under 2 percent.
To ensure that the drivers have the necessary equipment, GrabTaxi buys smartphones in bulk in all the countries it operates in, except Singapore. The company then issues the phones to the drivers, who pay for them in daily installments.
“Our biggest competitor is the hand,” or street hailing, Tan said. There are no near-term plans to expand into India or China, he said.
Family Roots
Though Tan left the family business, in a way, he’s going back to his roots. His great-grandfather drove taxis.
It was the younger Tan’s grandfather and granduncle who founded Tan Chong Motor, which began as a distributor of small motor vehicles in the 1950s before assembling cars for Nissan in Malaysia.