Vietnamese ride-hailing app set for Singapore launch next month

Vietnamese ride-hailing app FastGo will arrive in Singapore this April, providing more competition for regional giants Grab and Go-Jek.

FastGo will begin accepting driver registrations from private hire car driver vocational license holders on April 1, it said in a statement. The first 500 drivers to sign up will receive a year free of service charges, with the next 1000 registrants getting 6 months free and the next 1500 enjoying 3 months free.

It will initially operate a fleet of at least 3,000 cars in the city-state, the startup’s Singapore country manager Diep Nguyen told The Straits Times.

Photo credit: FastGo

FastGo aims to differentiate itself from Grab and Go-Jek, which collect fees of around 20 percent per fare from drivers, by charging drivers a daily subscription fee under US$5 if their daily income exceeds US$30.

It already operates in Vietnam and Myanmar, and has plans to launch in five other countries in the region – including Indonesia and the Philippines – by the end of this year. Nguyen said the company will invest an initial sum of about US$3 million in each new market.

A recent study from market research firm Kantar TNS found that, as of January this year, FastGo was the fourth most popular ride-hailing brand in Vietnam with 2 percent of survey respondents saying it was the app they used most often.

Grab appeared to dominate the market at 86 percent, according to the Kantar findings. Go-Jek – which operates as Go-Viet in the country – was the second most popular app at 6 percent, followed by local player Mailinh at 3 percent.