The Hangzhou-based Kuaidi Taxi steps up effort to expand customer base in its investment phase in Hong Kong. Parker Zheng / China Daily

Kuaidi Taxi, the online taxi booking service provider, predicted a six-fold increase in its customer base, which would help boost its market share to at least 20 percent within a year.

Results of the company's survey of 3,262 Hong Kong taxi drivers show that more than 90 percent of respondents said fares had increased an average of at least 10 percent after using taxi-calling apps. More than 80 percent of those surveyed said orders through the app averaged as many as six each day.

"According to our survey on the popularity and acceptance of taxi apps, we also saw many elderly taxi drivers starting to use apps to generate more fares," said Ray Ng Shu-kei, Kuaidi Taxi's Hong Kong manager.

The Hangzhou-based company made its official debut in Hong Kong in September last year. It offers free location-based taxi-calling services, where users can order a taxi on the Kuaidi Taxi app, and the built-in GPS will direct the nearest vacant taxis to pick up at the specified locations.

About 18,000 taxi drivers - roughly 80 percent of the those who have smartphones - have signed up with the service, while registered users numbered about 380,000.

The app is taking 20,000 to 30,000 orders every day, but Ng said the development potential for taxi app in Hong Kong is still large. There is no reason why the number of orders can't increase to 600,000 a day some time in future, he said.

"More than a million people take taxis every day in Hong Kong, while on the Chinese mainland, 50 to 60 percent of taxi riders order online in advance," Ng said. "For Kuaidi Taxi, we hope to secure at least 20 percent share of the daily taxi-calling orders within a year, while our registered users can increase to two million at the same time," he added.

According to the company's survey, taxi app users find the service most useful in saving time, especially in locations where taxis are hard to find.

Kuaidi Taxi said that it will invest HK$30 million in promoting the service to passengers with credits and coupons to users. But similar to the company's experience on the mainland, in which it spent years to invest on expanding client base without making a profit, Ng said there is no target date for the Hong Kong operation to breakeven.

"It's impossible for Internet companies to charge for basic services. We're still in the investment phase in Hong Kong, and our only goal is to let more people know our platform," he said.

"But we're not worried about our future profit, either do we have a concrete timetable when to profit," he said, adding that Kuaidi Taxi on the mainland is already generating an average of up to 30 million yuan ($4.8 million) in monthly revenue.

agnes@chinadailyhk.com

(HK Edition 02/05/2015 page8)