Gojek purchased a minority stake in a Blue Bird taxi booking app for $30M. Know the cost to build a taxi app like Blue Bird.
Larger user base, affordable technologies, and a more refined business model are changing the game of the taxi booking app business. It has become easier for entrepreneurs to launch the taxi booking app and acquire a decent number of users.
With the inception of many new taxi booking startups, successful funding rounds and big players showing interest in newbies, the global taxi booking app market has been witnessing an upward tendency.
According to Bloomberg, Indonesia’s on-demand service app Gojek has announced that they have purchased a minority stake in the local taxi operator Blue Bird for a whopping $30 million. People with the knowledge of the matter said that Gojek has bought a 4.3% stake in Blue Bird.
Though this is significant news for the global taxi booking app providers and entrepreneurs planning to build taxi booking app, this isn’t the first time when a big player has shown interest in local taxi booking app startup. In the past, many global taxi booking app providers have acquired local startups in astonishing deals.
But, such news clearly depicts the potential of the local taxi booking apps. Gone are the days when local taxi booking apps couldn’t break even after 1 year of the business. Now, it is a child’s play to put your taxi booking app business on the radar of investors, users and big players.
Sensing the opportunity, if you are planning to build a taxi booking app like Blue Bird, you’ve come to the right place. In this blog, we will discuss everything you need to know to build a taxi booking app like Blue Bird, along with the cost of development.
What is so earth-shattering about Blue Bird?
Blue Bird is the Indonesia-based taxi booking app, launched by Blue Bird Group. After experiencing the initial success, Blue Bird Group has extended its services, from regular taxis to executive taxis, limousines and car rentals, bus charters, and logistics. Currently, Blue Bird is running its taxi booking app business in 7 major cities of Indonesia such as Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Surabaya, Bali, Medan & Lombok.
Blue Bird is Indonesia’s largest taxi company with more than 30,000 vehicles and around 50% of market share. It has managed to win the trust of the users by providing taxi drivers with the training and professional development courses.
What are the new features Blue Bird has added in the app?
Despite the fact that Blue Bird has launched Indonesia’s first GPS-enabled taxi booking app back in 2011, it started losing its novelty after the inception of many other similar apps. So, the Blue Bird team has recently decided to revamp its app to add missing features and meet the new laws imposed by the government.
Now, users of the Blue Bird app can choose to pay the drivers with or without cash. To facilitate easy payment options, Blue Bird has tied up with Gojek for its GoPay service.
They have also added some more privacy features. One of the most groundbreaking privacy features is the hidden customer mobile number on drivers’ app.
Moreover, an ‘advance booking’ feature is yet another feature they have accommodated in the latest version of the app.
How can you start an online taxi booking business by building a taxi booking app like Blue Bird?
Starting an online taxi booking business like Blue Bird is easy if you follow a few simple steps. These steps include a market study, business plan, permit, funding, app development, and management.
- In the market study, you have to study the characteristics of the market. You have to identify the top rivals, potential users, opportunities and challenges associated with the market. This market study will help you to draft the best business plan.
- In the business plan, you have to draft the possible ways to overcome challenges as well as ways to seize the opportunities. You also need to find the loopholes in your rivals’ top business processes. Additionally, you must decide on the business model. You are also required to list out the requirements of the potential users and features which can do justice with their requirements in the best possible way. While listing out the features, you have to take driver app features, user app features and admin panel features into account.
- Once you have an extensive business plan, you can apply for the permit. In the permit application, you have to fill out information of your business which you have already drafted in the business plan.
- Once you acquire the permit, contact the investors and bag the decent amount of funds as you will need money to build a taxi app, run a marketing campaign, bring drivers on board, and manage other day-to-day operations.
- Later, you can hire a modern taxi app development company which can build the unsurpassable taxi app without charging too much. After running a pre-app-launch marketing campaign, deploy the app in the market.
- You are not done yet. Once you start getting users and drivers, you have to maintain an appropriate supply-demand ratio. If the demand in one area is very high, and your drivers are serving in other areas, you will surely lose users. (Advanced features like Surge pricing and heat map help you to achieve an appropriate supply-demand ratio. )
Will your online taxi booking business be successful? Validate now.
Generally, two types of people jump into the taxi booking business market. One is entrepreneurs and another is fleet owners. Both of these business seekers have different resources but the same goal. Entrepreneurs do have only a business idea and a hope to close funding rounds. Whereas, fleet owners do have existing users, funds, drivers and even vehicles. But fleet owners lack the idea. Talking about the business goal, they both want to be profitable and dominate the market.
But do you know what it takes to be profitable and dominate the market? You need the fusion of the resources an entrepreneur has and the resources a fleet owner has. Which means, one can easily be successful in the ever-growing taxi booking app market if he owns an idea, funds, users, and drivers. (Here, idea and funds you require before kicking off online taxi booking business and users and drivers you require after kicking it off.)
Do you have queries or are you lacking any one of the resources? Let us help you.
How can we help you to collect all resources and be profitable from the first month of the business?
Coruscate is the top taxi app development company which has entertained many queries related to taxi app business planning and development. We accommodate 100+ app developers, app designers, business experts, and success managers who do not only develop and deliver taxi apps but help you to plan and deploy business strategies.
Our business experts and success managers help taxi booking app startups to study the market, get the permit, draft the business plan and decide on the business model. Whereas, our app developers and app designers utilize the latest technologies to come up with the flawless and feature-packed taxi app.
The cost to build a taxi app like Blue Bird depends on the approach you choose.
To develop the custom taxi app with all custom features, we charge somewhere between $15000 to $25000.
- And the cost to develop the clone version of some popular taxi app starts from $10000.
Feel free to contact us for a personalized quote. You will be rewarded with free taxi app demo and consultation.