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Lauren Chan

Amid the rising popularity of ride-hailing apps in Hong Kong, local taxi drivers are using the mobile technology to enhance convenience and choice for customers in a tough market.
On Thursday the Post sampled HKTaxi, one of the city’s most popular taxi apps. Ordering a cab proved fruitful as a red urban taxi arrived within minutes of pressing the app’s call button.
With apps like HKTaxi, drivers no longer have to wait for a hailing pedestrian. Drivers can decide which customers to pick up, weighing in factors such as a customer’s proximity and destination.
Hong Kong taxi industry pins hopes on new in-house booking app
But can this development turn the tide of decreasing taxi usage over the past decade?
A taxi driver surnamed Ko said he relied heavily on apps. He estimated that roughly half his customers came from a combination of four taxi apps.
In terms of generating income, however, the apps didn’t make much difference, he said.

“Apps decrease the amount of time I use to search for customers, but I’m limited by the number of journeys I can take,” he said.
At present, Hong Kong has about 18,138 taxis in operation with an estimated 40,000 full-time drivers among them. However, over the past decade, taxi usage has dropped from 1.3 million daily trips to 1 million, due to increasing operating costs and a growing reputation for bad service.
“Each of the past three years, we have experienced year-on-year growth of more than 100 per cent,”
Kay Lui, HKTaxi co-founder
Meanwhile, the taxi app market is booming. Kay Lui, co-founder of HKTaxi, estimated that every day in Hong Kong between 40,000 and 50,000 consumers use taxi apps to hail a cab.
“Each of the past three years, we have experienced year-on-year growth of more than 100 per cent,” he said of HKTaxi, this despite a market increasingly crowded by competitors like Uber.
After the Post entered details for a present location and destination into the app, taxi drivers in the vicinity responded almost immediately, calling to arrange a pick-up location and time of arrival.
Unlike some other taxi apps, HKTaxi allows its users to pay according to the meter rate, so a journey costs exactly the same as one flagged on the street.
A taxi driver who declined to be identified estimated he picked up four to five batches of customers daily using HKTaxi.
“It’s easier to find customers,” he said of his two years using the app. He also believed calling taxi centres was a thing of the past. “I don’t even have my receiver on,” he added.
Some 20 taxi apps available for Hong Kong users are offered at iTunes App Store, ranging from HKTaxi – launched in 2013 – to TAXI, which hit the market just last month.
Lui estimated that between 10,000 and 20,000 people used his company’s app per day.


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Uber

Taxi! Hong Kong cabbies turn to ride-hailing apps to pick up more passengers in crowded market

Apps are an increasing source of customers for local taxi drivers. Photo: Edward Wong

A demonstration of "HKTaxi", a local taxi calling app inside a taxi in Tsing Yi. 16JUN16 SCMP/Edward Wong

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