May 11, 2017
Ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies Inc. on
Thursday launched its smartphone-based taxi service in Myanmar, which becomes
the 77th country for the firm to operate in since its founding in 2010.
The service is initially available only in the
country’s commercial capital Yangon, where Uber is partnering with hundreds of
government-registered taxi drivers, an executive of the U.S.-based firm said at
a launch event.
The launch comes less than a week after it
carried out a 10-day trial run for technical feedback in Yangon, which has over
2 million daily commuters using public transportation.
Speaking at the ceremony in Yangon, Michael
Brown, Uber’s regional general manager for Asia-Pacific, said, “Uber’s mission
is to bring reliable transportation to everywhere for everyone and now I’m
pleased to say that includes Yangon, Myanmar.”
“Uber can create great benefit in terms of
safety for the riders in Yangon and good economic opportunities for the
citizens of Myanmar who can take advantage of our technology,” he added.
There are more than 70,000 taxi drivers in
Myanmar, and Uber has hundreds of driving partners as of Thursday, according to
company officials.
Using a smartphone to hail a taxi is still a
relatively new concept in Myanmar, a country of over 50 million people which is
still in transition from decades of military rule to an open, democratic
country.
Currently there are two local app-based taxi
services operating in Myanmar but the market potential is attracting
international firms to the country.
Myanmar’s mobile phone penetration rate has
skyrocketed from around 7 percent a few years ago to nearly 100 percent by the
end of 2016, with the smartphone adoption rate at around 70 percent, according
to international surveys.
Uber’s regional rival, Singapore-based Grab,
launched its own trial service in Yangon last month.
Kyodo News
Ref; The Global New Light of Myanmar
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