If you were thinking Grab needed some competition in the local ride hailing service scene, then you’re not alone. diffride, another local brand, has just been announced earlier today.
So what makes diffride different from Grab? From the rider’s point of view, not much; diffride says it offers cash and cashless payment options, and allows for booking rides which journeys will take more than an hour. You can also book rides for your friend.
In terms of loyalty rewards, diffride says it’s planning to partner up with shopping malls, hotels and other destinations to offer joint value-added deals. To put it simply, taking a ride to a certain mall may get you discounts in shops within the mall.
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But things look pretty interesting for the drivers, at least on paper. Instead of taking a cut from drivers for every trip they make, all they have to do is pay the service RM5 a day, and any proceeds beyond that go straight to the driver.
diffride is also partnering with Digi to offer drivers special postpaid plans from as low as RM58 with at least 10GB of data and unlimited calls. This is interesting as data spent on navigation apps are often an undocumented expense. For drivers who need phones, there’s also a deal with Huawei to get drivers special deals if they use the brand’s smartphones.
Benefiting both riders and drivers are telematics on vehicles to act as another source of performance evaluation in addition rider reviews, as well as a security measures for if vehicles are stolen. Partner vehicles must also be no older than eight years to be eligible, according to diffride.
We’ll have to wait and see if diffride will be a worthy competition in the locally small world of ride hailing. If not for the loyalty incentives, fares will certainly play a major role in its success, and we’ll need more people using them to find that out.
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