There are plenty of e-hailing apps in Malaysia, with Grab being the biggest one that has its grip on 72% of the local market share as of 2020. In Indonesia however, Grab has a massive local rival called Gojek, which provides ride-hailing using both cars and motorcycles alongside a variety of other services within its own super app ecosystem.
Excitingly, a Honda City bearing the Gojek logo was recently spotted in Kuala Lumpur by Vocket. In front of the car was another vehicle with a crew that seemed to be filming the Gojek car, along with a police outrider accompanying them.
While no announcement has been made by Gojek, this might be a sign that the company is bringing its GoCar e-hailing service to the Malaysian market. There are currently 33 e-hailing companies registered with the Land Public Transport Agency (APAD) but as of 7 June, Gojek has not yet appeared on the list.
The Indonesian firm, which is now under the GoTo umbrella after a merger between Gojek and e-commerce platform Tokopedia, previously announced plans to bring its motorcycle ride-hailing service to Malaysia in 2020. This was when the government had greenlighted test runs to legalise bike-hailing along with local company Dego, which has now pivoted to mostly doing delivery services.
However, Gojek’s ambition did not come to fruition and the company has so far made no presence in Malaysia. This was presumably caused partly by the pandemic as well as the government’s u-turn, leading to a ban on bike-hailing once again due to safety concerns.
Gojek entering the country, albeit with cars instead of its bike-hailing service, might just be the competition the industry needs to drive down prices as Grab fares have increasingly surged within the past few months. There are already other local players such as AirAsia Ride, EzCab, inDriver, GOJO, maxim, and several others, but none have seemed to gain enough of a footing to rival the e-hailing giant.
(Source: Vocket.)
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