SINGAPORE – As it looks to gain an edge over its rivals in a saturated market, transport app company GrabTaxi today (April 8) announced that it will be investing US$100 million (S$136 million) in its newly-opened research and development (R&D) centre here.

The 4,500 sq ft centre, located at Cecil Court, will eventually house 200 engineers and data scientists. Analysing data and spotting trends from several South-east Asia countries, the staff will, for example, look into ways to better match taxi supply to demand and improve the accuracy of expected waiting time. They will also be involved in developing new innovation and services.

GrabTaxi founder and Group Chief Executive Officer Anthony Tan said that Singapore was chosen as the location of its R&D centre as it is a huge market, has good infrastructure and a conducive business environment. A GrabTaxi spokesperson added: “Singapore remains one of our largest markets, because there are almost a million taxi rides a day and there is still some way to go to convert them all to e-hailing,” he said

Mr Tan said that GrabTaxi is focused on serving South-east Asia, “where there are still real problems (in the taxi industry)”.

He added: “Look at Indonesia, look at Thailand, look at Malaysia... Even Singapore, there may not be a safety issue but there is still a huge efficiency issue.”

GrabTaxi Chief Technology Officer Wei Zhu cited traffic jams in Indonesia and inadequate infrastructure development around Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia as examples.

In South-east Asia, more than 75,000 taxi drivers are registered with GrabTaxi. To date, its mobile app has been downloaded onto more than 3.8 million mobile devices.

Noting the increased competition in the third-party taxi app market, the company’s spokesperson said there is still “great potential” for growth in South-east Asia, given that it has 620 million people and more than 500,000 taxis. XUE JIANYUE