InDriver enters Ecuador to fight in the transport apps market

Ecuadornews:

The auction of the price of the race is the main difference that it has with the companies Uber and Cabify, its direct competitors. Mobile applications have become vertiginous in indispensable tools for most of those who have smartphones, due to its possibilities to facilitate daily tasks and save time and money.

The need to make transfers in the city, which was previously covered entirely by taxis, is a fertile ground for the emergence of multinationals that enable a fast, safe and even more economical mobility service. All that, thanks to the facilities offered by smartphones.

In Ecuador, while the formal taxi sector mobilizes and protests demanding the government not to allow the development of this type of services, digital platforms fight the market. Until now, the Uber and Cabify multinationals were fighting over the market of those customers connected to the world through the mobile internet.

However,a third company arrived in the country that offers a huge differentiation withits competitors. This is InDriver, a platform created in Russia in 2011 with which the client offers what he is willing to cancel for his transfer and the driver decides whether to accept or present a counteroffer. In other words, it works like a race auction, where both the client and the driver agree on the rate.

According to Martín Linera, manager of InDriver in Ecuador, the difference of this application with its direct competitors are the low prices, the payment in cash and the disbursement by the drivers of a lower commission for each race.”By launching our service, during the first six months the drivers who work with us will not have to pay commission, after that this value will fluctuate between 5% and 8%, depending on the city, unlike our competitors who charge 25% of each race “, said the representative of this Russian company born 5 years ago.

The main difference with other applications is that it operates as an online travel auction and allows users and drivers to agree on the rate. This platform is present in 142 cities in 10 countries and although it has not yet been launched, it is already operating in the Ecuadorian market serving in the cities of Guayaquil, Quito, Cuenca, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, Machala,Manta, Portoviejo, Loja, Ambato, Esmeraldas, Quevedo, Riobamba, Milagro andIbarra. “We have an ambitious expansion plan throughout Latin America,where we will invest up to $ 50 million. We are a technological alternative that facilitates the mobility of the residents, giving them back the possibility of entering into a dialogue with the drivers and between them canagree on the price of their trip, “said Yegor Federov, InDriver’s Commercial Development Director.

To innovate or to die

Thee normous acceptance of the citizenship to the services of this type of transport does not like at all to the taxi drivers, who at world-wide level have carried out multitudinal marches against the services of these applications, because they question the numerous regulations of the authorities of local transit, the payment of taxes, the cost of posts in cooperatives,among others.

Daniel Solines, a researcher in urban mobility and new technologies, believes that taxi cooperatives are obliged to develop their own platforms that allow them to compete with multinationals. In other words, “moving from crying to action, because the market is wide and although getting taxis on the street will still be possible, the future of this market niche is in mobile applications that offer ease, security, immediacy,” he said.

Headded that the resistance to this digital change is still generational, as young taxi drivers are more open to using technology. Other details For 6 months the drivers will not pay commission. InDriver is currently in the process of recruiting drivers throughout the country. Currently there are already 550. Labor opening. The platform does not restrict the access of drivers of other companies, since they can provide their service both yellow taxis and private vehicles that work with other applications. (I)

Source: https://www.eltelegrafo.com.ec/noticias/economia/4/indriver-ecuador-mercado-apps-transporte