Mud-slinging Behind The Scenes As Malaysia's Taxi Apps Duke It Out

There is an ongoing land grab for taxi drivers in Malaysia, with taxi app startups aggressively targeting the handful of taxi drivers keen to jump on a digital platform. Two year-old taxi booking startup, MyTeksi has been busy recruiting cab drivers over to its service. When I visited its offices two weeks ago, Aaron Gill, MyTeksi’s product and marketing head, said the company ramped up its efforts over the past six months to convince drivers to get smartphones and data plans. It’s had to sell the benefits of getting hooked up to a service that allows drivers to receive jobs, rather than have to drive around looking for passengers by the side of the road. So far, MyTeksi has recruited about 2,500 drivers covering the capital city of Kuala Lumpur, as well as Putrajaya, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan. The platform receives one booking every eight seconds, or 10,000 per day, which nets the company about $3,100 (10,000 MYR) daily. Several competitors have joined the fray: Hopcab and TaxiMonger launched last year. But things really started heating up in the past month, when Rocket Internet debuted its Easytaxi service in the country. Since Easytaxi’s launch, there have been rumors of its staff approaching cabs with MyTeksi decals and getting them to hop over to Easytaxi instead. Sources close to the companies said that Easytaxi’s staff have also helped delete the MyTeksi app from drivers’ handsets, instead replacing them with Easytaxi’s app. Joon Chan, managing director at Rocket Internet did little to deny the rumors. “Drivers are free to use any app they want on their phones. It’s only fair since they pay for their own phones and data plans,” he said. He added that only about 10 to 15 percent of the drivers in the country have smartphones, indicating that the addressable pool of drivers is even smaller. But MyTeksi may be deploying its own anti-competitive tactics. Chan produced a photo of the MyTeksi app apparently prompting the driver to remove the Easytaxi app. Chan said Easytaxi started driver acquisition on the 12th of May, and has been putting up kiosks at gas stations to recruit drivers. The startup is expanding quickly?in the past month, it’s added five new employees each week, he said. Gill of MyTeksi, commenting on Rocket’s entrance in its space, said: “They’ve made us better and sharper. We are growing our fleet at a faster pace now,

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