Last week Yandex.Taxi, the taxi service of Russia’s tech giant Yandex – which merged with Uber’s delivery businesses in Russia and neighboring countries earlier this year – announced its launch in Tallinn, Estonia.
“Estonia became the 10th country, and the second country in the EU, where we launched activities,” Yandex.Taxi press office representative Natalia Zhuravlova told East-West Digital News.
“We’re surely not going to stop our international expansion there, we’re considering expanding across new countries and regions of the world,” she added without mentioning any specific target.
To provide its services, Yandex.Taxi partners exclusively with authorized taxi companies. In Tallinn, the service cooperates with ten local taxi companies with a fleet of over 300 cars.
Yandex.Taxi offers two tariffs, ‘Econom’ and ‘Comfort,’ with prices starting from €1, with additional €0,55 paid for each kilometer.
Yandex.Taxi calculates the exact price before the ride. The cost will not change at the end of the ride even if it will take more time than estimated. Users can pay in cash or by card.
First step in Latvia
In March, Yandex.Taxi started operations in Latvia – its first EU market – making available its iOS and Android apps in Latvian language, in addition to Russian and English. The pricing in the Latvian capital is slightly lower than in Tallinn — starting from €0.71 with additional €0.36 per kilometer.
To support its start in the country, Yandex.Taxi partnered with ten Latvian taxi companies and dispatcher services with a fleet of over 200 vehicles. The service was used by some 50,000 people during the first month since its launch, the company claims.
As of today, Yandex.Taxi is active in 300 cities of ten countries. Its app is translated into 15 languages.
Last year, the company stepped back from Ukraine — a country where it launched in 2016 — as all Yandex services, as well as its bank accounts, were blocked in the country amid the political tensions with Russia.
inDriver in Mexico
Meanwhile, inDriver, another Russian taxi-hailing service, is entering the Mexican market, as reported last week by Russian business daily Kommersant, based on exchanges with the company’s founder Arsen Tomsky.
According to Tomsky, the service has been available to the 800,000 residents of Saltillo since the end of April. As of the time of the launch, inDriver partnered with some 500 vehicles.
Uber, which has been operating in Mexico since 2016, will become the main rival of the Russian service in the country.
InDriver plans to invest $30 million in further international development, targeting some 200 new cities within a year, including location in Mexico cities, other Latin American countries, Africa and the USA.
This startup has an specific business model: passengers enter the price they are willing to pay, while drivers accept the orders only upon agreement of the fare.
Headquartered in Yakutsk, Siberia, the service was founded in 2013. So far, it has been operating in 120 cities of Russia and neighboring countries. This past September, the company raised a $5 million Series A round from Leta Capital.
