Ride-hailing app FastGo kicked off to pressurize Grab for market share

The withdrawal of Uber from Southeast Asia market, particularly from Vietnam market has resulted in the monopoly of Grab in the $1.7-billion ride-hailing market, together with the loss of traditional taxi, has created opportunities for the emergence of many new applications in Vietnam like Mai Linh Bike, VATO, Aber and recently launched, FastGo.

FastGo was developed by NextTech three years ago, formerly known as Peacesoft Group, a technology startup company, which is considered as Alibaba of Vietnam.

Particularly in 2015, NextTech began to develop technology and deploy applications for large taxi companies. In 2016 and 2017, FastGo completed and integrated technology for the development of payment technologies and by the end of June this year, FastGo has been officially launched, supporting car manufacturers and car buyers.

Currently, FastGo has three core services including Fast Car - a four wheel drive service for individual drivers who wish to increase their income, Fast Taxi - a service linking with taxi companies and Fast Luxury - luxury car service.

This is the only car application in the current market that protects customers on each trip using Fast Protection insurance with a value up to $8700. This is a feature that Fast Go Vietnam has partnered with Post and Telecommunication Joint Stock Insurance Corporation (PTI) to give customers peace of mind on every journey with FastGo.

Speaking at the launching ceremony, Nguyen Huu Tuat, CEO of FastGo Vietnam said: "In the current 4.0 industrial revolution, ride-hailing applications must be continuously developed to give users the best experience and benefits. FastGo is developed by Vietnamese and for Vietnamese. FastGo inherits NextTech's solid technology foundation and tens of thousands of business partners and millions of existing users of NextTech, will surely create more jobs and bring more benefits to Vietnamese.”

According to Tuat, the competitive advantage of FastGo compared with other taxi companies in the market is the price policy, which benefits both drivers and customers.

For customers, Fast Go is committed to a fixed price i.e they do not increase price during peak hours. Currently, the price for 4-seat car (Fast Car) is VND7,900/ km ($0.35/km), lower than all other brands. For Fast Luxury, the price will be 1.3 or 1.4 times of the Fast Car price.

The customer segments that FastGo aims at are young tech-savvy as well as visitors to Vietnam. FastGo plans to have approximately five million customers in the future.

For drivers, Fast Go does not charge a percentage fee but only charge a service fee maximum of VND30,000 ($1.31) per day. FastGo also has driver welfare and support programs so that they can be assured of the best possible customer service.

According to the plan, after its launch in Hanoi, FastGo will continue to expand in the Ho Chi Minh City in July and major cities in 2018. FastGo application can be downloaded from the App Store and Google Store.

As Nguyen Hoa Binh, Group founder cum Chairman of NextTech Group once said:"It can be easily seen that traditional taxi is very conservative, they keep their business practices same as decades ago and they are slowly adapting to change. It can be said that the downfall of traditional taxis stemmed from the fact that they did not catch up with the 4.0 industrial revolution, not just because of the emergence of other competitors like Uber or Grab."

The struggle of traditional taxi in the current market with the emergence of Grab and Uber is the most obvious evidence of the influence of the 4.0 industrial revolution, where the business can only survive if they evolve.