Technology to determine taxi firms’ destiny Vinasun and Mai Linh, the two dominant companies in the taxi market, are being threatened by newcomers such as Uber, Grabtaxi and Easytaxi which allow passengers to call taxis via smartphones.   The great advantage of the service is that passengers, who just need to have a smartphone with a 3G or internet connection, can call a taxi within the shortest possible time, know their itineraries in advance, and calculate the service fees they have to pay. An analyst noted that the competition in the taxi market is a technological one. The taxi firms which can apply technologies to provide the best service within the shortest time will be able to attract customers. Easy Taxi spent nearly one million dollars just in the last six months of 2014 to run its sale promotion campaign. The three-digit growth rate of the Vietnamese taxi market allowed the taxi firm to easily call for investment. In 2014, Russian Phenomena Venturer and German Tengelmann Ventures agreed to pour $40 million more to help it develop in the Asian market, including Vietnam. In August 2015, Grabtaxi announced that its investors had agreed to inject $350 million more worth of investment capital into the firm to help expand the market. Anthony Tan, managing director and founder, said the amount of money would be used to develop technology to upgrade services, especially because the company plans to expand existing technical centers in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and China. Uber’s apps now allow passengers to learn information about drivers, itineraries, time and cost. More recently, it has applied new software allowing passengers to assess drivers and refuse drivers who receive bad remarks. Uber’s passengers have been reassured that they can feel secure with the firm’s service since all the trips provided by Uber can be supervised with GPS, while the information about cars’ owners, drivers and passengers is transparent. Toi Di Chuyen, the owner of iMove, a new face in the market, also offers modern apps to allow passengers to use its services in the best way. iMove app allows to display the itineraries, distances, and the time needed to reach the destinations with Google Map’s GPS. All the taxis using iMove app available within the radius of two kilometers will be displayed on a screen and classified in accordance with proximity for passengers to choose. According to Truong Trong Hao, iMove’s managing director, the company now provides iMove free of charge to taxi firm. It makes money from ads. Firms have also been trying to provide added services to lure customers. Most recently, Uber launched a service allowing passengers in Hanoi and HCMC to pay in cash. Vietnam is the fastest-growing market among the four South East Asian markets Uber has invested in. NCDT