Shopee Indonesia has officially entered the ride-hailing business. According to reports the e-commerce giant has partnered with Indonesian taxicab company, Bluebird Group. The partnership enables users to hail taxi rides straight from the Shopee App.

Shopee Indonesia’s move to ride-hailing signifies the growing competition faced by e-Commerce giants in the country as well as the endless possibilities in store for them. Indonesia’s largest ride-hailing company, Gojek merge with Tokopedia, the country’s largest e-Commerce provider several months earlier as well.

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The new feature is called Taksi. Available in some areas in Indonesia, users can not only make bookings for their rides via the Shopee app but also make payments using Shopee Pay. In August this year, Shopee had also established a partnership with Blue Bird to form a logistics service called BirdKirim, enabling users to use Blue Bird drivers for courier deliveries.

The ride-hailing market in Indonesia is forecasted to be worth US$5.6 billion by 2025. It is currently dominated by two companies, Gojek and Grab. While Grab is not a top e-Commerce player in Indonesia, it is the biggest ride-hailing company in the region. Grab’s a super app already offers multiple services apart from ride-hailing. They include food delivery, wallet services, and others.

With ride-hailing being a critical component of a super app, Shopee is definitely heading in the right direction to be a super app in Indonesia. Apart from e-Commerce services like online shopping, their app also offers food delivery, hotel reservations and even has its own wallet.

 A new horizon for Shopee Indonesia?

As such, Shopee Indonesia may not be the biggest e-commerce player in the country, but they are definitely becoming a force to reckon with. In fact, as e-Commerce continues to grow rapidly around Indonesia the competition is also increasing among the providers.

Currently, the biggest e-Commerce provider in Indonesia is Tokopedia. Statistics showed that Tokopedia has an average of 150 million visits per month on its e-Commerce website. Following closely for second place are both Shopee and Bukalapak, with around 100 million visitors per month.

According to e-Conomy SEA report by Google, Bain, and Temasek, Indonesia’s e-Commerce value is expected to reach US$ 83 billion by 2025. In fact, the report also stated that e-Commerce for the entire ASEAN region could reach US$ 1 Trillion by 2030, with Indonesia remaining the largest e-Commerce market.

With that said, it is not surprising that some of the e-Commerce companies are venturing out beyond e-Commerce into other verticals as well. For example, following Tokopedia merger with Gojek, the new company, GoTo recently announced appointed underwriters to manage its US$1bn initial public offerings (IPO), which could take place as early as the first quarter of 2022.

For Shopee Indonesia, the competition in the country also meant they would need to branch out to other verticals as well. SEA Limited, the parent company of Shopee, is already making huge investments in their brands in Europe and Latin America. There were also rumors of the company planning to start offering services in India, but there has been no official announcement on that yet.

The post Shopee Indonesia ventures into taxi-hailing services appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Posts and comments of confusion, anger, and desperation from irate and panic-driven customers filled social media as they demanded an explanation from their respective Grab entities for the unexpected downtime.

Users collectively complained of the inability to search for rides, choose pickup or drop-off locations, nor book rides on the superapp. Drivers were unable to receive jobs, including GrabFood delivery riders.

Complaints on Twitter brought up ripple effects of the hours-long disruption, such as loss of income for delivery riders and merchants; canceled food orders, as well as inconveniences to users, who ended up being late to work (including the writer of this article).

Update as of 2.45 pm: Services to the Grab superapp resumed between 11 am to 12 pm for Malaysian users, but it came with a barrage of angry tweets complaining about surge prices, which were as high as 2.5 times.

A cursory check by Tech Wire Asia found that the official Twitter Grab accounts for Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia had posted about service disruptions from as early as 7 am (GMT +8) this morning, indicating that the downtime was a widespread regional issue.

Trending on Twitter today

On Twitter, “Grab” was trending, with over 115,000 tweets on the disruption as of time of writing. 

It appears that this is the first time that it has happened to Grab’s superapp — or any superapp in the region, for that matter. 

Grab, formerly MyTeksi, was first conceived and rolled out as a simple taxi-booking app in 2012 in Malaysia. 

It is now a decacorn, and has greatly expanded its offerings to include a multitude of services in what it deems a “superapp”.

They include food delivery, grocery delivery, express delivery, buy now pay later (BNPL), and multiple insurance and finance-related services through its superapp.

Today’s Grab superapp disruption comes shortly after the company posted net losses of almost US$1 billion (US$988 million) in its 2021 Q3 earnings report. 

In a press release, the company cited a “decline in mobility due to the severe lockdowns in Vietnam” for its revenue of US$157 million — a nine percent year-on-year drop. 

With barely a month to go to its US listing via a US$40 billion SPAC deal with Altimeter Growth Corp, these negative revenue performances might cause investors to feel uneasy.

Nevertheless, the company believes that opportunities for digital services will continue to expand in Southeast Asia, citing a recent Google, Temasek, and Bain report on the SEA digital economy which is projected to grow to US$1 trillion by 2030.

Is it game over for monopoly?

Grab is seen as a monopoly in the ride-hailing and transportation space for years, ever since they bought over their biggest competitor, Uber, in 2018. This resulted in a fine of SGD6.4 million for anti-competitiveness by a Singapore consumer watchdog. 

Today, competitors are popping up, with its key rival for the Indonesian market, Gojek merging with Indonesian e-Commerce giant Tokopedia to form GoTo. 

GoTo is expected to pose a threat to Grab’s weakened presence in Indonesia, as well as the SEA region. 

With plans to be in the ride-hailing, food delivery, and fintech space, GoTo could possibly be the largest operator of these services in the SEA region.

In August this year, airline Air Asia unveiled the Air Asia superapp,  with a new ride-hailing service AirAsia Ride for users in Malaysia.

Irate users in Malaysia had resorted to AirAsia Ride and multiple other smaller players, due to the extended downtime this morning. 

This turn of events reflects the high dependence Southeast Asians have on Grab, seeing how the decacorn’s main source of revenue is from ride-hailing.

With a dearth of other reliable players, it is indicative of the dangers of monopolizing the highly important ride-hailing space, especially when service disruptions of this scale happen.

The post SEA users affected by Grab superapp service disruption appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Southeast Asia’s first low-cost model airline AirAsia has just become the first airline in the world to have ventured into ride-hailing services — all for the sake of diversifying and cushioning the blow from the pandemic that has stalled the global aviation industry.

AirAsia Ride, launched today as part of the group’s super app, will be initially made available in Malaysia’s Klang Valley before expanding to other cities in the country, and then the rest of ASEAN.

As it is, AirAsia has been taking on the region’s super apps in the food delivery and grocery delivery businesses with the launch of its own services in these spaces since the pandemic started. In fact, just last week, its logistics arm acquired Malaysian food delivery startup DeliverEat for US$9.8 million.

The budget airline’s latest foray didn’t come as a surprise. Chief executive Tony Fernandes had earlier mentioned AirAsia’s intention to enter the ride-hailing business as the firm developed a super app that could take on the region’s most dominant players such as Grab and GoTo.

Just in July this year, AirAsia acquired Gojek’s Thailand business and launched a super app and food delivery service in the country.

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One can attest that AirAsia has been on a transformational journey from a budget carrier to something much bigger — becoming an e-commerce and data and finance behemoth. Although the journey began long before the Covid-19 hit, it is ironically getting a push from the pandemic.

The dynamics of the super app and AirAsia Ride

AirAsia Group’s CEO Tony Fernandes during the virtual launch this morning reckons that the group’s ride-hailing business’ presence will be strong in the airports. “We’ll be strong in the tourism department,” he stressed, noting that existing users of its ecosystem were likely to use its new services.

It currently has about 1,500 registered drivers and expects 5,000 more to come on board in the next six months. Source: AirAsia

“This is a zero-sum game. We will be very strong in the airports and tourism markets. People who like our ecosystem will begin to use us,” he said. He added that AirAsia Ride does not only focus on moving people, but also packages and supplements its riders,” Fernandes said, adding that the launch of AirAsia Express too will soon complete the delivery aspect of its super app. 

Meanwhile, Fernandes also said that AirAsia travel will eventually be renamed Go Away, which will become the airline’s version of Expedia and Traveloka.

There are also plans to launch an education and a health offering moving forward, although more details on this have yet to be released at time of writing.

Where does AirAsia Ride fit in the ride-hailing game?

AirAsia Ride seeks to provide greater convenience, more competitive prices, and better income opportunities for drivers, according to the company. Chief safety officer of AirAsia Group and Head of AirAsia ride, Ling Liong Tien, shared that the ride-hailing arm currently has about 1,500 registered drivers and with its nationwide expansion, the group expects 5,000 more to come on board in the next six months.

Leading the new offering as CEO is Lim Chiew Shan, who said AirAsia ride stands out from competitors due to its position as a super app that owns an airline. He believes having verticals such as e-commerce, fintech, logistics, and e-hailing add value to its brand proposition too. “This enables us to leverage on AirAsia Group’s rich and vast data and algorithm to provide a seamless and connected journey experience for our passengers,” he explained. 

Soon, he added that passengers can also use BIG Points to pay for their rides. AirAsia ride is available by clicking on the “Ride” icon on the AirAsia Super App. AirAsia super app CEO Amanda Woo also noted that there is the potential for AirAsia Ride to integrate with its logistics arm Teleport, to complement the logistics and delivery services. 

“Another exciting product innovation in the pipeline is a partnership with electric vehicles to spearhead the drive for sustainability in mobility for ASEAN,” she added. What sets AirAsia Ride apart from the rest of the e-hailing players is that drivers take 85% of the net fares (excluding toll charges), higher than other ride-hailing providers in the market, according to the group’s blog posting.

Challenging monopolies 

Whilst ride-hailing services have been facing a lack of passengers due to large-scale movement restrictions across the region, this latest move from AirAsia appears to come at an opportune time to disrupt the Malaysian ride-hailing industry that’s monopolized by regional decacorn Grab.

Grab, which pre-pandemic made most of its revenue from ride-hailing, has been holding its position in the Malaysian ride-hailing space post-Uber acquisition. When the pandemic hit, it pivoted to deliveries, which has so far been its greatest source of revenue over the past year.

Whilst smaller Malaysian startups such as MyCar and Mula have attempted to break into the ride-hailing market, a possible lack of robust technologies and smaller marketing budgets have not quite given them the capability to capture a larger market share of both consumers and drivers.

As countries like Singapore and Malaysia are looking to relax movement restrictions soon for fully vaccinated residents, ride-hailing uptake is expected to gradually increase. This entry by AirAsia, strongly backed by robust technologies, will give consumers a wider breadth of choice for their ride-hailing and delivery needs.

The post AirAsia’s steering its super app into the ride-hailing space appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Ride-hailing pioneer Uber had a very uneven 2020 by all accounts, facing multiple challenges, not least of which was the fact that users were not ordering ride-shares as they were stuck at home for a big chunk of the year.

The coronavirus surges in Uber’s active markets effectively hobbled the ride-sharing industry for months. At the same time, current CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is still on a mission to edge Uber closer towards profitability, which the company has sacrificed since day one in efforts to garner market share and to secure its brand identity.

Uber Technologies Inc reported three loss-making quarters from January to October this year, amounting to US$5.8 billion so far in 2020, roughly equivalent to the pandemic period when the company had to let go of 3,700 employees.

While its core business floundered more than usual, the same lockdown restrictions that laid low ride-sharing worked in favor of its food delivery division Uber Eats, with people ordering from home on a more regular basis. Uber Eats enjoyed a 190% spike in revenue in Q3 2020 compared to the same period last year, helping to offset some of the pressure on the present management.

It was under the previous CEO Travis Kalanick, however, that Uber first started looking at self-driving cars as the possible future of the company. If Uber could get autonomous vehicles to work before others, Kalanick believed the company could evade a future where human-piloted taxis like Uber’s were no longer needed.

Unfortunately, this week, the self-driving unit was sold to self-driving-tech developer Aurora for an undisclosed amount, joining the sale of its Jump electric-bicycle division to scooter firm Lime and the just-announced deal to flog its Elevate flying taxi project to a startup called Joby Aviation, as Khosrowshahi continues to offload business entities in the hopes of improving its bottom-line.

The company also sold part of its logistics arm, Uber Freight. Despite the piecemeal dismantling of various components that were once going to make Uber the “Amazon for transportation”, spokesperson Sarah Abboud told Wired that Uber “remains committed to commercializing self-driving transportation on the Uber network through industry partnerships,” and the terms of the Aurora deal appear to support that.

Uber will invest US$400 million in Aurora as part of the deal, bringing Aurora’s valuation to US$10 billion and tripling its workforce with the addition of 1200 employees from Uber ATG. Uber’s current CEO Khosrowshahi, will also take a seat on Aurora’s board, signaling an intention to get back involved as self-driving taxis move closer to becoming a reality.

But will Aurora actualize autonomous cars that are reliable and thoroughly-tested (an Uber self-driving test tragically killed a pedestrian in 2018) ahead of the likes of Google-backed Waymo, Didi Chunxing, and Tesla, as former CEO Kalanick feared? That could determine the survivability of Uber’s self-driving vision.

Back in April, Uber had to hastily release its Uber Connect delivery service in a select few US cities and a couple of other countries, to enable the sending of essential items to nearby recipients. Just this week, Uber Connect was made available in thousands of new locations, including 2,400 American cities like Atlanta, Detroit, Las Vegas, and even Honolulu, Hawaii.

The wider arrival of Connect has been timed to coincide with the year-end holidays for the US and much of Europe, marking Connect as the other bright spot alongside Uber Eats, in what has definitely been a roller coaster year for the ride-hailing giant.

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As the post-coronavirus landscape looks more favorable in 2021 as potential vaccines could see economic conditions improving next year, this could see Uber’s core ride-sharing operations return to more regular conditions as folks resume going outdoors for work and recreation.

But a drastic improvement in one of the company’s verticals could see a converse effect in another. For instance, resuming outdoor activities means that people will also eat out more, which could help drive the food delivery segment down.

Market analysts are also predicting a similar upending in stocks. Companies that performed well this year as a result of the pandemic such as Zoom Communications, Crowdstrike, and DocuSign Inc. have all been downgraded as analysts predict potential “performance headwinds” for these stocks next year.

And, as vaccines give the market some optimism, an economic rebound is expected sometime in 2021 for the big tech firms, including Uber and San Francisco-based Lyft.

The roller-coaster ride might not be over for Uber’s entities yet, but in the short term, losing billions is nothing new for the company. Uber is estimated to lose US$8 billion by the end of this year – which is roughly equivalent to how much it lost in 2019.

The post From AVs to contactless deliveries – Uber’s rollercoaster 2020 appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing is launching the world’s first ride-sharing electric vehicle (EV) as the company aims to reduce costs throughout its network. The world’s largest ride-hailing network also aims to increase ride-sharing in China from 3% of total mobility services today to 30% by 2030. 

Beijing has made the adoption of EVs a national priority as it looks to cut pollution.

According to Didi, D1 — which was co-developed with China’s biggest EV maker BYD — will be rolled out to drivers via its leasing partners in Changsha, Hunan province, in December before being introduced to other cities in the coming months.

SoftBank-backed Didi and Shenzhen-based BYD, which is backed by US investor Warren Buffett, began jointly-designing and developing the model two years ago. Didi has more than 550 million registered users and 31 million drivers, from whom it collects data to help develop the vehicle. 

In July this year, BYD — which competes mostly in the small and midsize space — achieved its first 2020 year-over-year sales increase for its all-electric vehicles, ending a 10-month dip.  

DiDi delivers over 10 billion trips per year, and its OEM partnerships have had a major impact on China’s new energy vehicle landscape. Today, about one million EVs run on DiDi’s platform, making it the world’s largest shared EV network, and DiDi trips account for about 1/5 of all EV mileage in China. 

To top it off, DiDi and non-DiDi EV owners enjoy better recharge deals and services at over 20,000 charging points in 60 tier-one and tier-two cities, benefiting from their partnerships with leading energy providers, including China’s State Grid, the Southern Power Grid, and BP. In 2019, one in five Chinese EV owners used DiDi’s recharging service. 

Disruption of traditional automakers

In June this year, Didi Chuxing gave itself a target to operate more than 1 million driverless taxis by 2030. In an online conference hosted by the South China Morning Post, the firm’s chief operating officer, Meng Xing, said the autonomous vehicles would be deployed where ride-hailing drivers are less available. 

The announcement was regarded by analysts as “ambitious”, given the technology’s current lack of market readiness, public trust, and the disruption caused by COVID-19 which has put the work of many carmakers, including AV firms, on hold. 

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On the latest announcement, Cheng said it will take at least a decade of continued investment before autonomous vehicle technology can meet critical technology, business, and regulatory milestones. Until then, human drivers will still be required.

Prior to that, Didi announced plans to deploy more than one million self-driving vehicles through its platform by 2030. Earlier this year, Didi raised US$500 million from Japan’s SoftBank for its autonomous driving subsidiary.

The post DiDi Chuxing is rolling out its own electric vehicles appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Seems like the idea of ride-hailing rivals Grab Holdings Inc. and Gojek being under one umbrella – at least from an investment standpoint – may come to reality soon.

Reports on Grab’s main investor SoftBank Group Bhd’s founder Masayoshi Son pushing for a potential merger resurfaced after some eight months hiatus, no thanks to the pandemic.

Apparently, Grab Holdings Inc. co-founder Anthony Tan is being pressured by Son to call a truce with intense regional rival Gojek, according to people familiar with the matter.

Partially owned by Uber Technologies Inc. following Uber’s exit from the Southeast Asian market in 2018, Grab is the region’s leading ride-hailing company. Tiger Global Management LLC and Toyota Motor Corp both have a stake in the company, which has an estimated valuation of US$14 billion.

Gojek on the other hand is an Indonesian company with operations also in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines. It is valued at US$10 billion and has prominent backers, including Google, China’s Tencent, and Singapore state investor Temasek.

Initially, reports that SoftBank was pushing for a merger of the two companies surfaced in March before Covid-19 affected the market horrendously. At that time, it was said that talks between the two competitors had been ongoing for two years but there was no urgency in the talks.

To put things into perspective, SoftBank pushing for a potential merger comes as no surprise given its ongoing attempts to sell and consolidate its investments following its WeWork debacle last year. 

In March, SoftBank announced that it intended to sell off US$41 billion in assets to help pay down debts. The most notable divestment came Sept 13, this year, with the confirmed sale of Arm Holdings Ltd. to Nvidia Corp. in a US$40 billion deal.

What would a merger mean for Grab and Gojek?

Grab has been burning through cash since the beginning, with its Singaporean ride-hailing unit losing more than US$200 million in 2019, according to filings. 

The company’s losses were taking a toll on Son and other backers, especially after the implosion of SoftBank-backed WeWork.

To make up for the losses brought by the Covid-19, the startup expanded its deliveries of daily essentials, as well as on-demand concierge services. In August, the firm announced a slew of financial services and products and aims to create an all-in-one “super app” for Southeast Asia.

In the meantime, Grab has been trying to raise fresh capital of about US$3 billion with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to secure about $3 billion investment, Bloomberg News has reported. 

Alibaba, which also has SoftBank as its major investor in, though not with a controlling stake, is the complicating factor in the potential merger.

Bloomberg reported that Alibaba’s investment could also result in a tie-up between Grab and Lazada Group, an e-commerce site that Alibaba holds a majority stake in. Such possibilities would only raise even more competition issues given that Lazada is the e-commerce market leader in many Southeast Asian countries.

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Say Alibaba invests US$3 billion in Grab, it will take the amount the company has raised to US$13.1 billion. Given that all companies with venture capital have to deliver an exit at some point, whether through an initial public offering or a private sale, with Grab there is a catch.

Under the terms of the 2018 Uber deal, it has to do so by mid-2023 or pay Uber US$2 billion. The clock is ticking for Grab, so a merger with Gojek ahead of a possible IPO makes even more sense.

In short, Grab’s expansion drive and super app strategy to gain dominion in Southeast Asia could be further fuelled by the potential merger with Gojek. It could however result in what some fear would be a death grip on the market.

One would argue a merger could combine both their strengths, removing a major element of competition from the market and bringing them closer to total domination. But another way to look at it is a company with a monopoly has great powers – more often than not, to the detriment of consumers.

The post What’s the beef between Gojek and Grab? appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

The aim is to provide opportunities for players like e-wallet and e-lender operators to be able to play an active role in financial markets, scaling up their accounts and users, despite not having any established record in banking.

Bank of Thailand’s Deputy Governor Ronadol Numnonda, for one, believes that digital banking will change the financial industry dynamics in the country, as new players enter. This type of innovation can stimulate the economic growth, enabling more flexible payment options and ramping up competition between existing players and new rivals.

Singapore, meanwhile, has issued five digital banking licenses, with 21 contenders already tendering their application – demonstrating just how much demand there is for a seat at the table. The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will be revealing successful applicants in the middle of the year.

Grab moves in?

In December, Malaysia released a digital banking licensing framework. The draft, proposed by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), has since been updated and simplified for digital banking companies starting up – an initiative to reduce the regulatory burden for promising new contenders.

It’s a tactical move that has attracted the Malaysian arm of Singapore ride-hailing giant Grab. The company is reviewing the feasibility of the initiative before finalizing its decision. Grab has been viewed as a prominent contender as it has already secured a large e-payments-reliant consumer base, as well as even launching its own e-wallet.

As well as providing a new source of income, entering into digital banking would help Grab’s objectives in supporting the gig economy workers it relies, whom it would be able to offer attractive services

Grab’s Country Head Sean Goh told The Malaysian Reserve, in the face of the rising cost of living, its workforce income has to be raised so that they can afford to keep up with increased financial demands.

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All in all, simplifying regulations can catalyze digital banking market across Southeast Asia, helping enrich and drive the regions’ digital economy by attracting competitive new players.

The post Digital banking – how simpler regulation is catalyzing growth appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

A strong reason for the growing preference is the convenience it offers in payments and transactions. The abundance of deals and discounts being offered by e-wallet operators have also made it an attractive capability. The payment technology is becoming more prominent in the market with SMEs adopting them extensively, e-commerce brands and ride-hailing platforms also offer the capability actively.

Given the benefits of convenience, and not having to root around for change, the technology is not just for the tech-savvy younger generation — even senior citizens are intrigued by the potential of the technology to make their days easier, particularly as it becomes an expected vehicle for payments.

During a recent e-wallet roadshow in Penang, it was learned that the elderly are in fact keen to embrace the technology, though many are unfamiliar with how it works, and need a helping hand to build confidence using it.

Margaret Chin, 75, told reporters that she has never used in-app e-wallet services despite being an avid user of e-hailing apps.

She explained that she was scared to figure it out on her own as she fears that she might create a system error. Chin, who has since continued to pay for fares in cash, added, “Although I want to learn to use an e-wallet, I still need assistance.”

An eighty-one-year-old, Teresa Low, another keen consumer, also came forward to share that she did not know to utilize a state-released e-wallet app to pay for her parking fees: “I have heard that the state government will introduce this app to replace parking coupons but I don’t know if I should leave my phone inside the car to let the officers know that I have paid the parking fee.”

It is clear that there is a general lack of understanding in how e-wallets work and how payments are processed. Since transactions happen digitally and no physical monetary exchange was involved, there is an ingrained fear that payment was not made.

Their confusion and concerns highlight that operators and players within the digital wallet space have been quick to launch the capability without offering proper usage guidance. While the core idea of switching to e-wallets from using cash is for convenience, it does mean that the concept is translated well among users — especially the silver-haired.

Organizers of the roadshow were keen to address this awareness issue by offering assistance and solutions as they understand the need to educate the public.

The State assemblyman, Chris Lee Chun Kit said, “We do not want to leave anyone out in the cashless society, especially senior citizens. We hope we can hold more roadshows to help people be more well-informed about using e-wallets.”

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Public agencies, as well as e-wallet operators, must nurture a greater sense of partnerships to help users — old or young — to use the technology efficiently.

Without such efforts, the journey towards being a cashless society or even a cash-lite one could be hindered and leave many in our society disconnected.

The post Let’s not leave senior citizens out of the cashless society appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

In Indonesia, where residents in the capital city are known to suffer from gridlocked traffic during peak hours every single day, the government has decided to move the capital to another location.

China, on the other hand, has taken an alternative route. The country is working with technology-powered transportation companies such as DiDi to transform its public transportation infrastructure.

DiDi recently launched an intelligent transportation management system that allows it to partner with government bodies to reduce traffic.

One of the departments in China that has partnered with DiDi is the railway. Over the past few months, intensive collaboration has resulted in a 46 percent reduction in traffic congestion at railway stations and reduced passenger transit time by 11.4 percent — which translates into a whopping 360,000 hours.

“China’s railways delivered 3.57 billion passenger trips, up 7.7 percent year on year. Railway stations in China are among the busiest traffic hotspots with increasingly higher demand on urban transportation,” DiDi’s Head of Passenger Service (Ride-Hailing Business) Eric Zhang told Tech Wire Asia.

Further, DiDi’s ride-hailing services also made it possible for customers to get a safe ride home after hours. The company said that in 2019, it provided over 100 million passenger rides originating from China’s train stations, 17.9 percent of which were requested after the end of the day’s public transportation services.

“In addition to serving as an effective supplement to public transportation especially during peak hours and special period, DiDi has been working with city managers to create friendly ride-hailing infrastructures at railway stations to improve traffic operation efficiency and offer a smooth experience for both passengers and drivers.”

While the company is working closely with 62 railway stations across 51 cities including Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Hangzhou, and Chengdu, it has also forged partnerships with 160 railway stations across the nation to create over 700 in-app route guides.

As a result of the in-app routes, 94 percent of passengers were able to find the pickup spots through DiDi’s indoor and outdoor guide signs and the company saw parking violations by its drivers drop by 90 percent, effectively improving traffic in the surrounding area.

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Overall, the reality is that the partnership and resulting collaboration between DiDi and China’s government indicate that there’s plenty of scope for innovation if organizations are prepared to think outside the box.

In this case, both, the government as well as DiDi seem to have benefitted by working together to help improve the country’s public transport infrastructure. In the coming months, with more integrations, better results are expected from DiDi’s smart transportation initiative.

The post Initial results look promising for DiDi’s smart transportation initiative appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand are set to triple the online market value by 2025 to US$300 billion – US$60 billion higher than last year’s prediction.

More details and insights entailed during the release of the annual report which follows the market research in the six countries from 2016. Ever since then, a growth spurt can be seen as over 100 million new users have gone online – an astounding influx since the digital world advances.

Tech Wire Asia had the chance to catch up with Google SEA Managing Director Stephanie Davis who revealed that there is a high interest in getting approximately 200 million users across the SEA region who have yet to come online.

A very motivating figure seeing the market value growing rapidly and will continue to accelerate as business leaders heed the call to go digital.

During the report release, she was joined by Rohit Sipahimalani, the Joint Head from Temasek, and Florian Hope, the Lead of Asia Pacific Digital Practice by Bain & Company, who shared the overall landscape of the SEA internet market services (economy) and the increasing online density.

Sure enough, online users are key players to the economy but the essential building blocks are made up of 5 sectors; Digital Payments, e-commerce, Ride-Hailing, Online Travel, and Online Media, ranging from 11 established and 70 aspiring unicorns to small-medium-enterprises.

Ride-Hailing and e-commerce are heavily being relied on as time progresses and enterprises are competing by leveraging technology to function at the highest capacity and to gain users’ trust.

Meanwhile, online media and online travel see a staggering increase too as more users adopt these services by choice due to their trust in these services and a growing habit of online purchasing.

As of now, e-commerce is leading with US$38 billion followed by Online Travel with US$34.4 billion.

Online Media, comprising of advertising, games and subscription services, lands on the third spot with US$14.2 billion and US$12.7 billion in Ride-Hailing. Nevertheless, Sipahimalani made it a point that one of the biggest challenges for all sectors is the lack of talents to boost growth.

What’s particularly interesting is the fact that Digital Payments, the new kid on the block, landed itself in the report this year and is already expected to cross the US$1 trillion mark by 2025. The growth of the sector is unbelievably encouraging, defining a new landscape in financial services.

E-Wallets are steadily becoming a preferred payment option in metro areas despite an estimate of 198 million are still unbanked, dominantly from non-metro areas. As a matter of fact, this ought to be a wake-up call for financial service providers to adopt relevant technology and digitalize services for the utility of online users.

AN AUSTRALIAN PERSPECTIVE ON TECH AND TALENT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

Soumik Roy | 17 July, 2019

The overall growth of the internet economy seems to prevail over global headwinds and challenges within the ecosystem itself. Albeit, the potential of SEA online market is really bright which results in a continuous flow of global tech funds.

Not only that, as infrastructure improves and network bandwidth increases, online activities continue to spike up during the last couple of years.

As the internet becomes more affordable and accessible, the digital market is set to flourish at a healthy pace, inching closer to ridding off the gap between SEA economy and developed economy.

As all countries spearhead their move to the digital world, Indonesia and Vietnam have taken the lead in recording a growth rate of over 40 percent in the last year.

It is evident that the internet businesses have hit new heights, so growing operations, as well as efficient business leaders, must take the leap to achieve digital maturity and contribute to economic growth.

After all, 2025 is only six years away, so there is no better time to go digital than now.

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