Meanwhile, in Vietnam: Uber vs GrabTaxi vs Vinasun vs Mai Linh vs EasyTaxi

The assault of the apps: Vinasun vs GrabTaxi and EasyTaxi


In December 2013, EasyTaxi landed in Vietnam. In February 2014, GrabTaxi came to Vietnam. And finally, in June, Uber arrived. GrabTaxi and Uber have been especially hot in the news. Although the initial uptake for GrabTaxi and Uber has not been a hockey stick of growth (it doesn’t work that way in Vietnam anyway), it was significant enough in recent months to ignite the incumbents, media, police, and government.

Vinasun has threatened to fire drivers it catches using GrabTaxi or EasyTaxi to catch leads. This is indeed difficult to enforce, but it is still a looming dread for poor drivers. Mai Linh, on the other hand, is in a position where it needs all the help it can get. But why is Vinasun really so afraid of the taxi booking apps in the first place?

In addition to deals that the taxi companies make with local buildings, the taxi company business model already fits together like a nice puzzle. There’s the call center, radio and walkie talkie system, the branding, the advertisement gleaned from in-taxi video, and the allocation of taxi resources across the city that all amount to a multi-faceted and entrenched business. But two of those things, which make up the meat of the Vietnamese taxi business, are obsolete with the entrance of an app equipped with GPS. Good bye to the thousands of employees across Vietnam who run call centers and book taxis via walkie talkie. But let’s be honest, firing these people is a short term pain, especially if Vinasun or Mai Linh (although Mai Linh is less incentivized since it owns less of its own taxi assets) can create their own apps.

What’s preventing taxi companies from making their own apps


Across the world, there is an odd phenomenon. All the media are talking about Uber disrupting the taxi companies but simultaneously there are no announcements of taxi companies creating apps to battle Uber. At most, we see taxi companies trying their best to lobby Uber out of their cities. Vinasun is no different. The economics of building a taxi app are too overwhelming.

Here are four of the key reasons why I believe taxi companies like Vinasun cannot build a taxi app to take on GrabTaxi:

1. User experience: Do not underestimate how hard it is to create a great user experience. The Vietnamese startup ecosystem made ferocious analyses of the subtle differences between GrabTaxi and EasyTaxi. These differences have played a significant impact on the reception of the apps by drivers and passengers. In sum, drivers and passengers in Vietnam love GrabTaxi more than EasyTaxi. If it’s already hard for a company like EasyTaxi to beat GrabTaxi on a UX level, how can you expect Vinasun, a taxi company with no technical background, to pull it off?

• 
  Call centers and walkie talkies: These are the tools Vinasun and Mai Linh use to secure and maintain marketshare. And they will get eaten alive by GPS-enabled booking apps. Firing all their staff or transitioning the mentality of thinking in terms of radio to bits is a hurdle.

• 
  Regulation and taxes: Taxi companies are currently regulated by local and federal authorities. Specifically, in Vietnam, the authorities are the Ministry of Transport, which is still reviewing the legality and current regulation of Uber. The Vietnamese media has erroneously circulated that Uber drivers were fined, but a spokesperson from Uber who talked to us said that is not true. Five drivers were indeed detained by local authorities, but since there is no legal precedent yet, the drivers were immediately released and on the road the next day. Tech In Asia spoke to the Vietnam E-commerce and Information Technology Agency, and who said services like Uber should be supported in Vietnam; they offer a better service than what is already offered. The current Vietnamese media is slanted in favor of the taxi companies, but we need to take a balanced view of the situation, from the perspective of the customer and the companies, new and old. The central issue here is taxi companies don’t want to take the risk of building an app into an area that is still murky internally and externally. It would be a struggle for them to build an app, and it would be a struggle to get adoption for the app. Thus, it’s better to watch, wait, and protect their current pie. But protecting your pie means you might be missing out on other pie to be had.

• 
  Lack of scalability: And lastly, probably the most important barrier for a taxi company building an app is the scalability. For GrabTaxi and EasyTaxi, they can host multiple different taxi companies on one platform, and they can head to any city in the world if they can find the staff and the cash (and clearly, they now have lots of cash). If Vinasun built an app, it would be only able to host its own fleet of cars only. It’s not worth it, even as a defense.

Given the above, it’s clear that the incumbent taxi companies have no reason and no way to build a booking app that can compete with GrabTaxi and EasyTaxi.



Uber vs all of the above


Before we get into the nit and grit of the war with Uber, let’s put one thing to rest. The idea that Uber does not compete against its taxi booking app equivalents. This is something that you may often hear from supporters of the taxi booking apps. They’ll say “No, see, taxi booking apps don’t compete against Uber. Uber is on the high end limo and black car market, whereas they’re on the mid-end with taxis.” This is just bullshit. The transportation market is a zero sum game. This is the opposite of the chat app battle. With chat apps, users can download multiple apps and use them simultaneously with different friends and groups. With a car booking app, when you book one car, it means you don’t book another car. There can only be one winner. When a potential passenger books on Uber instead of GrabTaxi, that’s a loss for GrabTaxi. This is one big reason why Uber is such a hot topic in media across the world. Not to mention, this tweet from Sam Hutchings on Uber usage:

Any valuation of Uber based on the taxi market ignores one thing: I’ve used Uber more in 9 months than I did taxis in the 24 years prior.

— Sam Hutchings (@Smutchings) November 24, 2014
​

There are six reasons why Uber strikes fear into the hearts of Vietnamese taxi companies:

1. Better service: This includes user experience, car quality, driver quality, and credit card usage. There is the user experience of sending an email after your ride and the app itself, which is world class. All the cars are cleaner, smell better, and look nicer. Most taxi drivers in Vietnam smoke cigarettes in their cars, this affects the smell of the car. A select few drivers in Vietnam will take advantage of naive passengers (especially tourists) and take them for extra routes, Uber’s rating system is a foil for that. And lastly, credit card usage eliminates the hassle of pulling out cash after taking a ride.

• 
  Cheaper: Currently, Uber is offered at about two thirds the price of a taxi. It has yet to offer UberX or UberPool in Vietnam, but when that happens, it will be able to offer diversified pricing.

• 
  Allocated pricing: Around 6:30pm to 7pm every weekday, Uber experiences surge pricing to meet demand. At that time, it’s price goes up to a regular taxi price. But Uber also now offers passengers an opportunity to take their rides out into the provinces. The system will change pricing once users hit a certain mileage. Taxis, on the other hand, stick to their pricing per mileage despite going longer distances.

• 
  Upselling and miscellaneous logistics: Across the world, Uber has performed unique marketing tactics to get media coverage. In San Francisco, it delivered kittens to users. In Ho Chi Minh city, it provided Bentley cars, which delivered Macaroons to passengers. Some may say this is just Uber testing the water and doing some fun marketing. But it’s introducing users to the possibilities that its logistics service could offer.

• 
  Working directly with limo companies: In Vietnam, Uber does not work directly with drivers who sign up for the platform. Uber works with companies that own cars that hire drivers. This protects Uber as a platform because technically, every user has hired the driver, not Uber. The companies pay the tax legally. This protects Uber from a certain amount of litigation.

• 
  Uber’s terms and conditions: Finally, there is one final scary thing about Uber, it’s legal precedence. In its terms and conditions, it states very clearly that “[the user] acknowledge that Uber does not provide transportation or logistics services or function as a transportation carrier.” That’s right, look it up. Uber has ironclad legal terms and conditions that are very hard for anyone to assault. Combine this with Uber’s latest round and you see a company with the legal and financial backing to make anything happen in Asia.

Despite all this, it’s interesting to note that Uber likely has less cars in the two major cities as GrabTaxi. If you log onto GrabTaxi and Uber in any central location in Ho Chi Minh city, you will immediately see the disparity. On GrabTaxi, there are easily 5 to 10 times more cars on their app in every location. But that hasn’t stopped Uber from signing more contracts with more local black car companies.

Online vs online: Uber vs GrabTaxi vs EasyTaxi


The battle between Uber and its taxi booking app equivalents is a more regional and global concern. And in the long term, a more important battle (thus giving birth to the massive funding rounds focused specifically on Asia). Uber battles Lyft at home while it battles GrabTaxi and EasyTaxi in Asia. Uber and Lyft share similar models, they employ independent cars and therefore threaten taxi companies directly. GrabTaxi and EasyTaxi, on the other hand, serve as trojan horses. It appears that GrabTaxi is helping the taxi companies, but it’s not. They serve the users first, themselves second, and the taxi companies third. GrabTaxi hosts multiple taxi companies on one platform, it therefore does not serve any one brand. It allows the user to choose whatever cab is closest. Vinasun doesn’t want that, it wants the user to always choose Vinasun. GrabTaxi serves convenience, Vinasun serves brand loyalty. GrabTax is therefore a trojan horse, an enemy masquerading as a gift, and Vinasun knows this. And although Uber serves black cars (and independent cars) and GrabTaxi and EasyTaxi serve the taxi companies, the truth is they both operate the same. They both work with taxi or limo companies to get drivers and both use marketing and PR to secure more passengers.

The difference is that Uber, as stated earlier, simply provides a better service via its app and high quality cars and drivers. Note that even though Uber provides the same Toyota Innova cars that Vinasun has, the Uberized cars are much cleaner and newer. In terms of the apps, Uber’s also better. There’s no cash payment, but it also doesn’t require users to enter their destination, something GrabTaxi requires users to do before booking a taxi. On the other hand, at the moment, there’s no doubt that GrabTaxi has more taxis on its service. As Ben Thompson has argued on Stratechery, gaining more drivers is a natural cycle to getting more passengers. More drivers means more availability of cars and convenience and therefore more passengers. The power of being the first mover in the taxi market is huge, and is likely why both GrabTaxi and Uber are on a breakneck pace to raise more money.

Taxi app vs taxi app: GrabTaxi vs EasyTaxi


In total, GrabTaxi has raised a total of $340 million since inception while EasyTaxi has raised a total of $77 million. But with GrabTaxi, its millions are earmarked to battle it out in Asia. With EasyTaxi, that money is spread out across the world, from South America to Asia. This will hurt EasyTaxi in its execution in Asia. At the same time, given that GrabTaxi has raised so much, it is likely that the company will outspend EasyTaxi by an order of magnitude. If it secures the market in this time, and passengers flock loyally to GrabTaxi, then it spells the death of EasyTaxi. But if GrabTaxi overspends, it is also possible that EasyTaxi will lie in wait for a year or two for GrabTaxi to burn out, teaching the market, and battling with local tax companies and Uber, and then swoop in with another round of funding and take the market. Who knows? It’s clear though, that EasyTaxi, a Rocket Internet company, is in it for the long run across the region, just like GrabTaxi.

Offline vs online vs online: a multi-sided war


This war for transportation is brewing with strategy and tactics. It is fought on multiple fronts with multiple strategies and business models. It’s a picture of how technology companies will inevitably assault the most entrenched and unassailable offline industries. Anybody who is not preparing for assaults from mobile apps and applications is likely deluding themselves. And anybody who studies business in the 21st century ought to be taking notes.

This post Meanwhile, in Vietnam: Uber vs GrabTaxi vs Vinasun vs Mai Linh vs EasyTaxi appeared first on Tech in Asia.

If The Murderer Is A Cop

What a disgrace.

At post time, there is still no official press conference. But with even The New York Times now reporting it, the “source” must be high and credible.

Wire: a new messaging app backed by Skype co-founder

Wire: a new messaging app backed by Skype co-founder

Well, here is yet another messaging app that promises to change anything. Can Wire really keep its promise? The app is sleek, multi-platform and works well, but it doesn’t do much. You can share messages, pictures, videos, links and the like. We must say it offers a stunningly beautiful visual experience, though.

What really puts this service all over the news today is that it is backed by a Skype co-founder. This gives the service more credibility, as Skype has grown to be one of the most used messaging services out there. You can download it for Android, iOS and Mac, if you want to try it.

Opinion: Though I must say I love the way Wire looks, I just don’t need yet another messaging service. Especially when not a lot of people will be using it (which is what we can assume will be the case in the long run).

Source：http://www.tinydeal.com/fr/

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Dakele 3 released to be the Mystery MT6752 phone

Still remember Dakele debuts Dakele3 with Sapphire Glass in China? Even Dakele bragged about the metal body, the home button, the slim body(7.25mmm thin, 148g) But we can’t help to think it turns out the model is really like apple’s iPhone6. But Dakele made something unique indeed, the camera lens is not raised like iPhone6. It is said it’s not easy to bend as the iPhone6.

Apart from the minor hardware difference, Dakele 3 also got a sapphire 1080p display,3GB RAM, 16GB ROM, 8MP front/13MP rear camera. 2500mAh battery with 1.7GHZ MT6572 octa-core processor. The dual SIM card slot also be used as Micro SD card slot.

Huawei’s Kirin920 had received a lot of praise in 2014

Huawei’s Kirin920 had received a lot of praise in 2014. The benchmark score of Kirin 920 shocked people all over the world. And today they released a brand new Kirin 620 SOC that suppots TD-LTE and LTE-FDD for next years’ low cost 4G LTE device. It’s Huawei’s first octa-core 64 bit SOC.  You can chck the specification form below to see how will the SOC performs.

As more and more cellphones will have fingerprint scanner feature in the future Kirin 620 also integrated with Fingerprint data protection rigion. Kirin 620 is more like to be a competitor for Snapdragon 615, but with 1.2 GHz per core and Mali-450MP4, how can this SOC compete with Snapdragon and MT6752? Maybe the price will be extremely low? Or maybe the benchmark scores?

Google Play Store’s Best Cyber Week deals 2014

The Google Play Store is helping you find the best Cyber Week deals on apps, movies, books and music with all of their favorites in one handy list.

The collection of digital media with a savings sticker on it includes direct savings on the purchase of books, movies, music and some apps, while other apps have special offers for savings and giveaways on in-app purchases.

By this point, you’ve seen and heard all you really want to see and hear about the American Thanksgiving, Black Friday/weekend and Cyber Monday/week, so let’s just get into a short list of some of the deals found on this Google Play Store Cyber Week deals page. Best of all, unlike the page itself, we’ll organize the deals into their given categories for you.

Books

• The One by Kiera Cass. Regularly $12.99, now just $3.25.
• Personal: A Jack Reacher Novel by Lee Childs. Regularly $13.99, also just $3.25.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Color Classics – Raphael Micro Series #1 comic. half price at $0.99.
• And more.

Movies

• A Million Ways to Die in the West. Rent for $3.99, own the HD version for $9.99.
• Noah, The Wolf of Wall Street and Anchorman 2. Own the HD version for $7.99.
• Star Trek Into Darkness. Own for $5.99.
• And more.

Music

• Ultraviolence by Lana Del Ray for $7.99.
• 747 by Lady Antebellum for $3.99.
• Guardians of the Galaxy (Awesome Mix Vol. 1) for $5.99.
• Recess by Skrillex for $5.99.
• And more.

Apps

• Deer Hunter 2014 by Glu. 80% off in-app Glu credits.
• OfficeSuite 8 Pro + PDF by Mobile Systems. Regularly $14.99, just $0.99!
• Photo Editor by Aviary. Free with free in-app upgrades.
• FxGuru: Movie FX Editor by Picadelic. 30% off individual effects.
• And more.

There you have it folks, now head on over to the Best Cyber Week deals page of the Google Play Store to see all that Google has arranged for you.

Yahoo Japan challenges report on news apps, refuses to admit it is losing to two startups

Over the past 18 months, news curation apps have become a hot vertical in Japan’s startup world. The business strategy of these apps is simple – become a must-use website and see advertising dollars pour in. Firms like Gunosy, SmartNews, and Antenna have been competing nonstop for users and revenue, all the while toiling in Yahoo Japan’s enormous shadow.

Last week, Nielsen released a report on Japanese news apps, that showed Yahoo Japan’s news app in third place behind SmartNews and Gunosy in terms of monthly active users. The report was notable for firmly placing SmartNews (3.85 million) ahead of Gunosy (2.98 million), a reversal of fortune for Gunosy which seemingly had outpaced its rival. Yahoo News was left bringing up the rear with 1.87 million users.

Nielsen’s findings gained extra notoriety after Yahoo Japan published a blog post that tries to convince the reader the company is still light-years ahead of the startups (hat tip toIT Media). In it, Yahoo Japan says that the Nielsen findings are flawed because they only look at mobile app numbers. Astute readers might be wondering why Yahoo Japan is criticizing Nielsen for essentially fulfilling its function properly.

Yahoo claims that Nielsen should have included the general Yahoo Japan app, not to be confused with the Yahoo News app, which people also use to access news. Had that been included in the calculations, the Yahoo would have the satisfaction of towering over the startups with 12.2 million monthly users.

Of course the problem with this argument is that we must take Yahoo Japan at its word, biased as it may be. The company did not give the precise data showing how people use the general app for news.

Despite its protestations, in the pure news app category, Yahoo is losing major ground. Both SmartNews and Gunosy have a long way to go before they can truly threaten Yahoo Japan’s yearly JPY 80.8 billion (US$753 million) advertising revenue but it is clear that Yahoo Japan is all too aware of their encroachment.

See: If Japan’s SmartNews is just another news app, why is it valued over $100M?

Battered but not beaten, Kairos has a second crack at building up its smartwatch brand

Second time lucky, perhaps? Kairos, the South Korean startup that promised an amazing Swiss hybrid smartwatch but has not yet delivered, is now back with a new model that’s very different.

Whereas the original Kairos model was a mechanical watch with a semi-opaque screen for smart notifications from your phone, the new Kairos T-band is a smart strap with a curved LED screen that can be attached to any existing analog watch. So your Swatch or your Rolex can be turned into a smartwatch.

The T-band is now crowdfunding on Indiegogo where the startup is hoping to raise US$50,000. The T-band, which comes with a Kairos Swiss watch face, costs from US$199, though cheaper variations are available for those who want a pure analog watch – or you could just buy the smart strap itself.

Kairos founder Sam Yang insists that this is not an admission of failure with its first watch. “Our hybrid watch project is not canceled nor is it pushed back due to the T-band. The biggest misconception we are getting is that we abandoned that project, therefore we scammed people, or that we lost focus,” he explains to Tech in Asia. Yang adds:

In fact, we launched the T-band more for our pre-order customers than anyone. We had about 15 percent of our customers who fell in love with our designs and asked if we can just sell the analog watch because the transparent display had only 40 percent transparency [so] it was blocking out the design too much for them. For some they don’t mind and want the cool factor of a transparent display. However, in order to provide more options for everyone, we came up with the T-band and launched prior to shipping the hybrid models so that our hybrid pre-order customers can choose before we make and ship their products.
​

So the original will eventually come out, but there’s no shipping date yet. The hybrid watch attracted US$1.4 million in pre-orders, so a lot of people are left waiting.

This is the new T-band in close-up:

Codemasters wants an Asian edge to its new mobile games

The Codemasters studio in Kuala Lumpur is tucked discreetly away in an office building in KL Sentral. If you weren’t looking for it, you could be forgiven for wondering if it even really existed amid the high-rise blocks of Plaza Sentral.

Unlike other triple-A studios nestled in the Southeast Asia region, Codemasters KL hasn’t yet pushed out any games it solely developed. Instead, it focuses on art, animation, and character work. It has contributed bits and bobs to many Codemasters games. But all that’s going to change.

Moving forward, Codemasters KL will be going into mobile game development, and in a big way. Lead technical art trainer Ivon Smith says that the studio hopes to pick up five teams of ten people each, and to develop and run at least five different mobile games. “It’s going to be a real challenge,” he says.

Codemasters KL has traditionally been about art and animation, but it’s going to recruit talent for the full mobile development pipeline, ranging from concept artists and coders, to producers. Majority shareowner Reliance Big Entertainment from India has a mobile development subsidiary called Jump Games, which is working to help Codemasters KL with its mobile teams and subsequent programs.

Zombie shooting mobile game from Vietnam looks like it belongs on a console

Fans of zombie shooter games, we might just have found a really good one for your smartphone or tablet. Best played on the iPad, Dead Target is a zombie shooter developed by Vietnamese game studio MPS and published by VNG Corporation.

According to a press release by VNG, the title has over one million downloads since it was first released on the Windows Phone market two months ago. Once ported to iOS and Android, Dead Target reportedly garnered more than five million downloads worldwide. We are unable to verify these numbers due to a lack of visible data on AppAnnie, but after taking the game for a quick spin we can see how it could be quite popular.

Dead man rising




As with many mobile shooters, Dead Target is simple. Completing a mission leads you to the next, more challenging one. Better equipment is unlocked as you progress, or you can drop some real-world cash for a quick upgrade. What really makes this game stand out from others is some remarkable 3D modeling – the zombies could have walked out of a PC game. Gameplay is smooth and seamless, and while the user interface could use a little more polish, overall Dead Target is pretty slick, and fun.

The game ticks along at an enjoyable pace, and you never really feel like you should spend money. I recommend playing it on a tablet simply because the larger screen will afford you better chances at making headshots, which come accompanied by the best exploding heads I’ve seen in a mobile shooter.

While the 3D Dead Target does look graphically demanding, VNG has said it is able to run smoothly even on Nokia Lumia devices with 512MB of RAM. Dead Target was developed on Unity.

The only quibble I have with Dead Target is one common to games from developing countries. Social issues like gender equality have yet to make an impact on narratives and visuals in video games. I especially hated the crassness here.



Fortunately the game is focused on the shooting, and continues to be even as you progress to tougher missions. You can try Dead Target out for yourself on Windows Phone, iOS, and Android.

See: A deeper look at Southeast Asia’s only two unicorns: VNG and Garena​

This post Zombie shooting mobile game from Vietnam looks like it belongs on a console appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Surabaya games studio Alkemis grabs seed funding from East Ventures

Earlier today, Alkemis Games, a new game production firm based out of East Java’s capital city of Surabaya, announced seed funding of an undisclosed amount from local venture capital firm East Ventures. The round marks East Ventures’ first investment in a Surabaya company, and comes just days before the archipelago’s anticipated Game Developers Gathering in Jakarta (Disclosure: East Ventures also invests in Tech in Asia. See our ethics page).

Alkemis Games founder Tedo Salim is a Surabaya native, but spent the past 20 years abroad in Singapore, Australia, and the US. Salim holds a bachelor’s degree in entertainment technology from Nanyang Polytechnic in Singapore and a master’s degree in the same subject from Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania. From 2009 to 2012, Salim worked as a games engineer at Schell Games in Pittsburgh before joining GREE International in San Francisco as a software engineer. In August, he returned home to put his skills to work in Indonesia’s increasingly vibrant games industry.

East Ventures’ latest investment could be the first of more Jakarta investors taking interest in Surabaya’s startup scene. Although it’s Indonesia’s second largest city, Surabaya has not been a hotbed for tech startups or organized venture capital investments. Instead, towns like Malang, Bandung, and Yogyakarta have seen more activity, particularly with models like game studios and digital agencies that don’t necessarily require a thumb on the country’s business pulse in Jakarta.