What if they make pirate taxi cheaper? I heard grabcar is
already cheaper than taxi - no booking fee, no surchages.
I dare say more than 90% of our population have mobile phone and
internet access. Even students also have it. Of course, they will
be some very small % that still does not have a smart phone but
sooner or later, they will be suck in to.
The threat from uber and now grabcar is real, don't be
complacent. Taxi biz can still survive because only taxis can take
street hails but it will get tougher and tougher as more and more
pax switch over to pirare taxis.
I myself will be booking grabcar to the airport when I go for
holiday in Sep. It isHmm convenient and cheaper, why not?
hmm....no booking fees and surcharges....then they depend on
what for survival? Or is it aggressive strategy taking
initial losses by the cash rich company with strong support from
very rich foreign companies, then when Comfort loses its customers,
then start charging booking fees. I saw from the internet
that even Japanese software giant Softbank is staking them (US$250
million).
As what I had guessed, the Grabtaxi R&D unit would not be
able to improve much sales as Comfort's integrated MDT system and
softwares are already at the adequate level. So they are
using "no-charge" to capture the call-booking market.
As I do not depend on call-bookings for a living (street hailing
is 80% of my income, used to be 95% of my income), I am still Okay
for the time being. I only consider driverless taxi ( see
http://www.citylab.com/tech/2015/06/singapore-is-already-planning-for-a-future-of-driverless-taxis/396707/
) as the real threat to traditional taxi business. Someone
in Singapore is trying to let more foreigners take away jobs from
Singaporeans by employing only a handful of Singaporeans and
eliminating at least 50,000 Singaporean jobs. And these are
Singaporeans who are more competitive than people in developed
countries based on price of taxi fares (
http://www.priceoftravel.com/555/world-taxi-prices-what-a-3-kilometer-ride-costs-in-72-big-cities/ )
.
And this is despite the highest cost of cars and additional
charges of COE.