Battle of the ridesharing apps to win your business
RIDESHARING apps are offering luxury holidays, loyalty reward programs, car pooling and big introductory discounts in an unprecedented battle for bums on car seats.
NSW
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IT’S literally a battle for bums on seats as ridesharing apps offer luxury holidays, loyalty reward programs and big discounts to win market share.
The NSW taxi industry has been losing more than $550 million in revenue and 80 cab licences every year after Uber arrived.
Four other players have joined Uber in Sydney in the past 18 months and, with another three companies likely to come on board in the next year, industry experts said deals for customers can only get better.
But one Australian company is calling on regulators to review surge pricing practices and protect customers from being gouged.
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Consumer advocate Christopher Zinn said ridesharing is the perfect example of digital disruption to an industry.
“Standing on a street corner and not being able to get a cab at 3pm or 3am — because of cab driver changeover — is a thing of the past,” he said.
“Consumers have benefited from more choice and lower costs but those costs shifted onto the taxi industry.”
Uber was the first player to come to Sydney in 2012 and for three years operated (technically) illegally.
In 2015 the state government legalised ridesharing and offered cab drivers $250 million in compensation, paid for by a $1 levy on every taxi and rideshare trip.
Australian-owned GoCatch then entered the ride-share market in 2016 and has since won 215,000 NSW customers.
Estonia’s Taxify (350,000 users across Sydney and Melbourne) came in December 2017 and Indian-based company Ola began in March this year. Ola has surpassed 1.5 million rides completed in Australia.
Female-only rideshare app Shebah also arrived in March, while Perth-based Shofer, Chinese giant DiDi and Melbourne’s Oiii are also poised to arrive in Sydney in the coming year.
All are fighting for $577 million in revenue in 2018.
Shebah is targeting female nurses, saying a nurse who is tagged in their Facebook or Instagram post could win a luxury holiday.
GoCatch has its own rewards program, called GoCoin, and is also offering 25 per cent credit back on some bookings before the end of this month.
Uber, the market leader, is offering savings with its new UberPool service, which lets customers share rides with strangers to save money.
But, despite all the rosy predictions, GoCatch CEO Andrew Campbell said the holiday won’t last forever.
He believes big international players could end up leaving or merging and then making money off surge pricing — where drivers bump up the price during peak periods.
“Australian consumers should expect short-term discounting to last for 3-6 months, followed by more frequent use of unregulated price surging,” he said.