Lately, people use smartphones for everything. Even to catch on a ride. Ride hailing has been a new trend in the transportation business. It’s cheap, safe and convenient. In USA and Europe, there’s Uber and Lyn. Southeast Asia got Grab. But Indonesia has started a new trend of motorcycle ride hailing. Go-jek, it is called.
Go-jek, the very Indonesian version of ride hailing
The name of the company originated from Indonesian language of gojek. It approximately means ‘motorcycle taxi’. Indonesian people usually use gojek to catch a ride when they are in hurry or when it’s too far to walk and there’s no other transportation. However, gojek was very pricey, compared to other traditional transportation as there were no fixed fares for the ride.
Nadiem Makarim and friends came up with a smart solution in 2010. He started the start-up company in 2010 with two applications, Go-jek for the customer and Go-jek for the drivers. With the fixed fare per kilomete, it is very cheap. Moreover, each driver’s exposed identity, it is saver than other traditional transportation.
Speedy success of the speedy ride
Being cheaper, safer, faster and easier to grab than other transportation put Go-jek on the top of popularity. Go-jek app has now been downloaded more than ten million times in Google Play. It now has over one million drivers available in almost 60 cities around Indonesia. Then the apps added other services. Food and goods delivery, home grocery shopping, payments, even beauty and cleaning services. Plus it now has its’ own cashless payment, Go-Pay.
Seeing the prospect of this, Google and Tencent infused a large sum of money to the company. With that, Go-Jek expands its wings to other Southeast Asian countries. Currently, the app is available in Thailand and Vietnam. And it’s about to open its branch in the Philippines and the home of its’ competitor in Singapore.
Governments, traditional transportation drivers and competitor on its way
Go-Jek has faced various problems in its’ development. It has to deal with the resistance from traditional gojek drivers and local bus drivers. The government was too baffled to come up with good policies for them. Furthermore, harsh competition from Grab is threatening its’ way.
Grab targeted to dominate the Indonesian market by 2020. It is currently pushing itself to the market by offering a lot of ride and food discounts. The Malaysian company adapted Go-jek concept of a motorcycle taxi to match the customers’ need. An association with the cashless payment company, OVO, has pushed Go-Jek further from the peak.
But then, Grab is still on a deficit. It can’t forever be giving off discounts to be more favored than Go-jek. We need to watch and see who will win as the top ride-hailing company in Southeast Asia.
