Russian ride-hailing app makes Vietnam debut

Russia’s InDriver has become the latest entrant in Vietnam’s growing but fiercely competitive ride-hailing market, joining several foreign and domestic firms in the fray.

Starting this month, the company is offering car and motorbike ride-hailing services in the central province of Thua Thien Hue, the southern city of Can Tho, and the northern city of Hai Phong.

It now has 260 car and 300 motorbike driver-partners. The company currently does not charge any fee from drivers, allowing them to receive in full the amount that customers pay.

The biggest difference between InDriver and other ride-hailing apps is its real-time deal feature, which allows customers to offer an initial fare for the ride and send it to nearby drivers, who have the option to either accept the fares or propose a higher one.

While other companies automatically select drivers, InDriver allows customers to manually choose one based on their proximity, reviews and price offers.

A company spokesperson said this feature goes against popular algorithms which automatically increase fares during peak and high-demand hours.

InDriver has over 50 million users worldwide. Its main competitors in Vietnam are currently Singapore’s Grab, domestic player Be, and Indonesia’s Gojek.

U.S.’s ABI Research estimates Grab dominates the Vietnamese market with a 73 percent share, followed by Be with 16 percent and Gojek with 10.3 percent.

In July, domestic player GV Taxi became a new player in the ride-hailing market, aiming to have 8,000 partner drivers in six months.

Vietnam’s ride-hailing market was the fourth largest in Southeast Asia last year behind Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand, according to a report by Google.