VietNamNet Bridge - Uber’s departure from the Vietnamese market has created a space for Vietnam’s apps to develop. Vato, Aber, 123xe and the newcomer Fastgo are among them. 

The e-hailing market is very competitive

To date, Vietnam has 8-10 apps to compete with Grab, while Go-Jek from Indonesia has joined the market and MVL from Singapore plans to debut in July.

Huynh Le Phu Phong, CEO of Aber, said the riding app is still full of potential. Just several days after debut, Aber received many clients. 

Two days after launching its app, FastGo got 1,500 drivers.

Both FastGo and Aber follow specific policies to retain users and drivers. FastGo, for example, has committed not to collect fees based on revenue, but to collect no more than VND30,000 a day from drivers. It has also committed to maintain a VND7,900 per kilometer fee and not to raise fees in rush hours.

Both FastGo and Aber follow specific policies to retain users and drivers. FastGo, for example, has committed not to collect fees based on revenue, but to collect no more than VND30,000 a day from drivers. It has also committed to maintain a VND7,900 per kilometer fee and not to raise fees in rush hours.

Le Phu Phong from Aber said to retain drivers, Aber has promised not to collect fees from them if the monthly revenue is less than VND500,000. 

Phong believes that the advantage of the startup is the low operation cost. Aber created its own map on iPad.

Meanwhile, Xelo pursues a special pricing policy under which drivers set up prices for services. As such, in order to get clients, drivers need to offer good prices and the prices must not be 30 percent higher in bad weather.

VATO received a huge investment from Phuong Trang Transport JSC. Two weeks after launching Vato, the ride hailing app which has spent VND2.2 trillion has attracted tens of thousands of people registering to use the service each day, while at least 5,000 drivers have joined the network. However, after a period of operation, VATO had to re-build its business strategy as the number of drivers and clients was beyond expectations.

An analyst commented that with limited financial capability, made-in-Vietnam apps cannot run big sale promotion programs as Uber and Grab did in the past to compete with rivals.

Who will be the winner?

Vietnam is a potential market for investors, which explains why big foreign players still plan to jump into the market though Uber has left.

Analysts noted that Grab has big advantages with a large amount of clients and drivers who joined Grab staff after leaving Uber.

However, Vietnamese investors are optimistic about their future. Xelo’s founder Nguyen Truong Giang said that if Vietnamese apps receive investments and have good development strategies, competing with Grab will not be an impossible mission.

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Thanh Mai