Bolt’s Marketing Director for Eastern and Central Europe and Asia, Sergey Kostya, shared his experience competing with Yandex.Taxi in other countries, including Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
Bolt’s Marketing Director for Eastern and Central Europe and Asia, Sergey Kostya, shared his experience competing with Yandex.Taxi in other countries, including Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
According to him, such competition is extremely difficult for his company, because Yandex.Taxi «pours money into new markets,» but even in these conditions it can be won, as evidenced by Azerbaijan.
«I call it 'oil money'. And it may seem that when someone shoots someone in the head and someone opens the tap of oil money, drains budgets and thereby necessarily wins, it is not. Because there are two cases — Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. We are successful in Azerbaijan and are market leaders,» Kostya said during a meetup of the Diia.City United union, noting that Bolt and Yandex.Taxi entered the Azerbaijani market at about the same time, and although the Russian tech giant traditionally spared no expense, this did not help it win the competition.
According to Serhiy Kostya, Bolt’s unsuccessful entry into Kazakhstan and loss of competition to Yandex.Taxi is explained by the fact that the latter already had a significant advantage over Bolt, having been operating in this market for a long time.
«In many markets, Yandex had the same nonsense — they come in with crazy investments, but this is not a guarantee of success. If you don’t have a leadership position right away, like Yandex in Kazakhstan, then money is a temporary solution,» he believes.
At the same time, Bolt’s marketing director admits that Yandex.Taxi could well win the competition in Ukraine due to certain features of our market, if Russian services had not been banned at one time.
«I think they would have managed to keep this market. Most markets in the world are very multinational drivers who come to other countries to work. There are such cases in Ukraine, but it is a very low percentage. And when we talk about a Ukrainian driver, he is, dare I say, spoiled. Most drivers in Ukraine, for whom this is the main type of income, even have mathematical models on how to work. The average income of a driver in Ukraine can be up to 800 euros, and these are not those who really work a lot. Accordingly, if someone flooded the market with money, it would work,» he admits.
Serhiy Kostya said that he is proud that now competition in the Ukrainian market is based on values and quality, and not on money, when everyone is «simply measured by budgets.»
As dev.ua reported, in July, Bolt launched a paid subscription in Ukraine with bonuses for trips and food delivery.
In August, Bolt, Uklon, and Uber sent a joint letter to the capital’s authorities and the National Police with a proposal to introduce an official model for taxi operations at night, citing the example of Lviv.
