Hold tight! Vietnam’s motorbike taxis just entered the Uber age

Although I’m American, when I get off the airplane in the US, it’s sometimes a headache. Transportation is so biased towards cars that getting from the airport back to my house is a tedious journey of deciding between trains, taxis, Uber, or Lyft. Either way, I’m bound to walk more than I want to. Call me lazy. Vietnam, on the other hand, where I’m now based, is somehow profoundly more convenient. On all the main streets, there are taxis, and on every street corner there are xe om (literally “hugging vehicle”). Those are the thousands of motorbike for hire across Vietnam. With them, a motorbike ride usually costs just 50 to 75 percent the price of a regular taxi.

That has inspired one startup, GrabTaxi, to connect these motorbikes to its taxi app. It’s a beta project only available in Vietnam right now. I just tested out the service in the GrabTaxi app, and I see only one motorbike driver nearby, as opposed to the 36 taxi drivers in the area. That means GrabTaxi is still sourcing riders for this.

Malaysia-based GrabTaxi entered Vietnam earlier this year. It’s up against the well-funded EasyTaxi and the mammoth Uber. They are all intent on conquering the Vietnamese market before anybody gets a large slice of the pie. Uber is being aggressive, slashing prices in key markets as it focuses on synchronizing demand with supply.

GrabTaxi usually gives out smartphones to its taxi drivers, so it’s likely doing the same with the motorbike riders it has persuaded to sign up. These xe om are quite poor – some live and sleep on their motorbikes – so many will likely welcome the chance to use their working time more efficiently with a taxi app.

However, this is not a new idea for Vietnam. Aloxeom is a startup that attempted to do this in Hanoi, Vietnam’s capital. But it hasn’t seen the kind of widespread traction that GrabTaxi and Uber claim to have. Aloxeom never had the venture capital backing that these two international logistics startups have.

This new motortaxi feature is an idea that wouldn’t really work in Malaysia, where GrabTaxi is from. It’s cool to see startups localizing like this. It means we have yet to see the extent of Asia’s logistics potential.