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Tag: goviet

  • Go-Viet revolving door sees new general manager quit after five months

    Go-Viet revolving door sees new general manager quit after five months

    Le Diep Kieu Trang has become the second top honcho to leave ride-hailing firm Go-Viet in less than a year.

    Making the announcement Wednesday, Go-Viet said that Trang, also known as Christy Le, had decided to choose her own career path and the company “regretted it.”

    However, the company did not reveal the exact time that Trang is leaving.

    “After five months at the company, Christy has decided to take a different path. We always work hard to find a mutually agreeable way forward, but were unable to do so in this instance,” Go-Viet said in a release.

    The company made no mention of her replacement.

    Trang was appointed general manager of Go-Viet last April. She said her new job “was unique and interesting.”

    In an interview with KrASIA, a technology business media site based in Singapore earlier this month, Trang expressed her ambition to bring the platform to all Vietnamese consumers.

    This is the second leadership change for Go-Viet in less than a year. Her predecessor, Nguyen Vu Duc left last March along with deputy general director Nguyen Bao Linh.

    Their resignation came amidst increasing competition in Vietnam’s ride-hailing market, with current leader Grab on an expansion spree and new players like Be Group fighting hard for a bigger share of the pie.

    According to a report by market research firm ABI Research, Go-Viet has 10.3 percent of the ride-hailing market in the country, compared to Grab’s 72.9 percent.

    Go-Viet, an affiliate of Indonesian Go-Jek Group, has said it has completed millions of trips since it was launched in September last year. The company offers transport and food delivery services.

    Trang had became the director of Facebook’s operations in Vietnam in March last year and resigned from the position in December, citing “family reasons.”

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  • Singaporean ride-hailing startup TADA launches in Vietnam

    Singaporean ride-hailing startup TADA launches in Vietnam

    Singapore-based tech firm Mass Vehicle Ledger (MLV) launched its ride-hailing app TADA in Ho Chi Minh City Monday. HCMC is the third Southeast Asian market that the firm is entering after Singapore and Cambodia. Instead of billing commissions from drivers like other major players Grab and Go-Viet, the app aims to profit off advertising as well as fees from B2B (business to business) partners that participate in their ecosystem.

    This ecosystem will operate on blockchain technology to store records such as payments and vehicle maintenance, and will engage transport-related companies such as traditional taxis, insurance, repair services, and car dealers.

    Kay Woo, the South Korean founder of MLV, said that among its current partners are Lotte Rental, a rental company of cars and equipment belonging to South Korean conglomerate Lotte Group, local insurance provider PTI and local taxi firm Vinataxi.

    The app will also not offer promotions like its rivals.

    “They throw promotions everyday but this won’t last forever, and prices will eventually go up. We focus on stability, and without commission our prices will be lower.”

    The MLV founder revealed that over 2,000 drivers had signed up with the company. After HCMC, the firm plans to expand the app to Hanoi and Da Nang.

    TADA plans to get 25,000 drivers to register this year but has no plans to join the motorcycle segment in the near future.

    Currently, MVL is registered as a technology company in Vietnam. Operations manager Peter Nguyen explained that because it does not charge drivers, it is only a technological solution. However, the company is willing to comply with transport tax and regulatory guidelines should they apply, he said.

    TADA, which means “let’s ride” in South Korean, opened in Cambodia just last month, and in Singapore in July 2018.

    MVL Technology Co., Ltd, formerly known as MVL Foundation Pte. Ltd, was founded in March 2018 in Singapore by Kay Woo.

    It aims to connect different sectors in the car industry.

    TADA has over 25,000 registered drivers and made more than 970,000 trips in the last 6 months.

    Vietnam’s ride-hailing market has seen new entrants after Uber’s departure early this year, including Vietnamese firm FastGo, GoViet – a subsidiary of Indonesia’s Go-Jek, Aber, Be Group, and the latest, TADA.

    Grab, which counts Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing and Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp among its backers, had 175,000 drivers and bikers in Vietnam as of last September and is the most prominent player in Vietnam after it pushed out Uber.

    Rival GoJek entered Vietnam last August, eyeing to grab a share of the fast-growing market. Vietnam has 95 million people, most of whom use smartphones.

    A number of local taxi companies in Vietnam have come together to compete against ride-hailing firms, Grab has been in a legal battle for more than a year with local taxi firm Vinasun Corp.

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  • Rivalry heats up in Vietnam’s food delivery market

    Rivalry heats up in Vietnam’s food delivery market

    Last week, a sea of red filled the inside of a milk tea shop in Ho Chi Minh City instead of regular young customers usually found in such places. GoViet drivers were queuing up to purchase food ordered by customers over its online delivery app Go Food, which was running a 50-percent discount program along with free delivery within 5 kilometers.

    The very next morning, the shop was filled with green shirts of Grab drivers. Grab had launched a free delivery promotion for the first 999 cups of milk tea ordered.

    Gradually, the green shirt – red shirt war is becoming visible on the streets.

    Despite being new entrants in the online food delivery market, both Go Viet and Grab are using various measures to attract and capture customer habits. Everyday, these two tech companies spend big on promotions across a wide range of food and drinks.

    They are also recruiting stars from the entertainment industry to endorse their service.

    From the get go, Go Viet had announced a partnership with singer Son Tung M-TP, who broke the record of Asia’s most viewed music video in 24 hours last May, as the company’s brand ambassador.

    Similarly, Grab’s start-studded ads feature diva My Tam, goalkeeper Bui Tien Dung and striker Nguyen Quang Hai of the national football team.

    While having large financial and technological capabilities, both Grab and Go Viet face many challenges after entering the market later than competitors like Delivery Now by Foody, Vietnammm, and Lala, which are apps well known to many customers.

    Delivery Now offers a wider range of food on its menu than Grab and Go Viet, had has a dense network of partners from large restaurants to small pavement stalls, industry insiders say.

    Delivery Now is a product of Foody Corporation, a Vietnamese food service startup that was acquired by Singapore-based internet firm Sea LTD last year; Vietnammm.com is a subsidiary of Takeaway.com, one of the world’s largest online food ordering websites based in the Netherlands; and Lala is invested by Ho Chi Minh City-based Scommerce Group, an information technology and services firm.

    Many experts believe that the race for market share between Go Viet and Grab will resemble that of Grab and Uber when they first entered Vietnam.

    Both Grab and Go Viet are aspiring to become super apps, for which food delivery is an indispensable keystone. In addition to attracting users with incentives and advertising, the two companies are spending a lot of money on reward policies to incentive drivers and expand their network of partner restaurants.

    Grab Vietnam CEO Jerry Lim claimed GrabFood’s growth has been very impressive, with the number of its contractors increasing eight-fold in just a month of testing in Hanoi. GrabFood was released in the city early last month, after a period of testing.

    In Vietnam, Grab is reaching delivery speeds of under 25 minutes and aims for a further reduction to 20 minutes per order, the fastest in regional markets.

    Grab Food is available in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, while Go Food is only present in the latter.

    Go Viet, however, remains confident that it will meet the needs of customers, aiming to partner up with thousands more restaurants nationwide in casual dining, fast food or luxury dining.

    “Food delivery and e-wallets are promising market segments,” GO Viet CEO Nguyen Vu Duc said after a few months of competing against Grab.

    However, these delivery apps also have certain limitations. For some items on their menu, drivers have to pay up front when ordering for customers in non-partner restaurants.

    Not all drivers are happy to buy food this way as waiting is time consuming, they have to make advance payments and risk the customer not accepting delivery.

    Do Xuan Quang, deputy head of Vietnam Logistics Business Association, said Vietnam was the fastest growing e-commerce market in Southeast Asia, and along with the strong growth of the logistics industry at 15-20 percent, a similar movement in the delivery market was not surprising.

    In 5-10 years, the delivery market in Vietnam will be valued at around $10 billion, he said.

    U.K.-based market research firm EuroMonitor International values the food delivery market in Vietnam at around $33 million this year and at more than $38 million in 2020. It also puts the annual growth rate of the market at 11 percent.

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  • Vietnam leads Southeast Asia in digital economy development

    Vietnam leads Southeast Asia in digital economy development

    Vietnam’s internet economy is the largest relative to GDP in terms of gross merchandise volume in Southeast Asia this year. A study by Google and Temasek, a Singaporean holding company owned by the Government of Singapore, said gross merchandise volume (GMV) traded over the Internet in Vietnam was 4 percent of GDP. The study encompasses ride-hailing, e-commerce, online travel and online media.

    In second place was Singapore with 3.2 percent, according to the study which covered Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Indonesia’s digital economy had the fastest absolute growth and looks set to reach $100 billion in 2025.

    In the last few years online businesses have been booming in Vietnam, with last year the digital economy growing by more than 25 percent, a rate that can be sustained for the next two or three years, according to the Vietnam E-Commerce Association.

    It said online sales are set to hit $10 billion by 2020, accounting for 5 percent of total retail sales.

    A Financial Times report last April cited Bain, a U.S.-based global management consulting firm, as estimating that Southeast Asia had 200 million digital consumers, or people who bought goods or services online, out of an adult population of 405 million. Vietnam, with a population of 93.7 million, accounted for 35 million.

    Vietnam’s youthful population is among the keenest users of mobile devices in the region, while the country’s consumers spend more time online than most of their neighbors, several studies have found.

    Research firm Nikkei estimated Vietnamese spend nearly 25 hours online per week, on a par with or just behind Singapore and the Philippines.

    In the ride-hailing sector, many players are expanding investments. Vietnam recently saw new entrants such as local firm FastGo, GoViet, a subsidiary of Indonesia’s Go-Jek, and Aber.

    Current market leader Grab has expanded to offer GrabFood and GrabCar Business, the latter targeting the corporate sector.

    But experts say Vietnam and many other countries in the world face a slew of challenges in the digital economy such as upgrading the skills of the workforce and adapting to rapidly changing technologies.

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  • Go-Jek launches services in Hanoi amid $500 million overseas expansion drive

    Go-Jek launches services in Hanoi amid $500 million overseas expansion drive

    Indonesian ride-hailing firm Go-Jek on Wednesday launched its services in Vietnam’s capital of Hanoi under the brand Go-Viet.

    The move is part of Go-Jek’s $500-million international expansion.

    The app-based on-demand service Go-Viet, driven by a Vietnamese founding team, with Go-Jek providing technology, expertise and investment, offers services ranging from transport and logistics to food-delivery and mobile payments.

    Go-Viet grabbed a 35 percent share of the market for motorbike ride-hailing services in the economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City just six weeks after launching there on August 1, Go-Jek founder and chief executive Nadiem Makarim said.

    “We are proud to have seen positive development in Ho Chi Minh City market, and this paves the way for us to expand our services to Hanoi,” Go-Viet co-founder and managing director Nguyen Vu Duc said at Wednesday’s launch.

    The launch followed an announcement by the company in May that it would invest $500 million to enter the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, following Uber’s deal to sell its Southeast Asian operations to bigger regional player Grab.

    On Tuesday, Grab announced a partnership with Vietnam’s MOCA Technology and Service company (Moca) for a mobile payment service, as the ride-hailing firm pushes to cement its position.

    The launch was attended by Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who is in Hanoi for an official state visit and a meeting of the World Economic Forum.

    More Indonesian businesses are seeking to expand their operations in Vietnam, Widodo told reporters on Tuesday, after a meeting in Hanoi with his counterpart Tran Dai Quang.

    “We expect bilateral trade to reach $10 billion a year by 2020…and I hope president Tran Dai Quang would work to remove trade barriers for Indonesian products, including automobiles,” he said.

    Trade between the countries rose to $6.5 billion last year from $5.6 billion in 2016, says Vietnam, which exports rice, crude oil, cement and farm produce to Indonesia, and imports fertilizer, oil products, machinery and fabric from it.

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