During this TOKEN2049, Grab no longer seems to be the first choice for taxi-hailing among participants in the currency circle. This largest taxi-hailing platform in Southeast Asia has been stolen by an application called TADA.
TADA invitation links are circulated in group chats in major currency circles. In Singapore, where the starting price per capita is NT$228, the cost of choosing TADA is sometimes only a fraction of Grab. According to actual measurements by BlockBeats, taking an ordinary car from Changi Airport to Marina Bay Sands will cost approximately NT$510, or approximately SGD 20.5, using Grab, while using TADA will cost NT$382, or approximately SGD 15.4, which is about 25% cheaper.
Source: BlockBeats: New users get S$60 in free taxi credit; Below: 50% discount on the second and subsequent transactions
Millions of subsidies to divert traffic to TG mini-programs
According to TADA's official policy, the first 4,000 users who use the TADA Telegram Mini App to hail a taxi during the TOKEN2049 conference will enjoy a SGD 60 free first order, and will enjoy the same 50% taxi subsidy as all Mini App users thereafter. Preliminary calculations by BlockBeats show that TADA’s subsidy cost over five days is at least 600,000 Singapore dollars, or approximately NT$14.87 million.
It is rare for a small online ride-hailing platform to invest millions of cash subsidies in a short period of time. However, what is interesting is that the large subsidies did not lead to TADA’s mobile app application. To obtain taxi subsidies, users must use the Telegram Mini App launched by TADA not long ago, and they need to use $TON or $USDT to pay through the TON wallet.
The experience of using TADA's Telegram Mini App is the same as using the WeChat mini program to hail a taxi. Users can choose the car model and payment method. It is worth noting that the user cannot choose credit card payment, and the platform driver displays the user's payment type as "bank card payment" on the application terminal.
Image source: BlockBeats Left: TADA’s Telegram Mini App taxi-hailing interface; Right: TADA driver’s mobile phone interface
According to TADA’s official website, the platform does not charge proportional commissions from drivers. Except for bank card and other financial payment fees, all fares belong to the drivers. However, some platform drivers told BlockBeats that TADA will actually still charge a certain percentage of commission, but its percentage is the lowest among all Singapore ride-hailing platforms.
According to BlockBeats, TADA charges drivers as follows: no platform fee when the fare is less than S$7, a platform fee of S$0.6 when the fare is between S$7 and S$18, and a platform fee of S$0.6 when the fare exceeds S$18. SGD 0.8 platform fee. This means drivers only pay a maximum of 8.6% of their earnings per trip and get to keep a larger percentage of their earnings on longer trips, compared to around 20% for mainstream ride-hailing platforms like Grab.
The "zero commission" model has made TADA highly recognized among Singapore's online ride-hailing driver community. According to Channel News Asia, many drivers on the Grab or Gojek platforms have said that their income has dropped recently due to the low order prices on the platform. Although The number of driver orders on the TADA platform has decreased, but revenue has not been affected too much. During TOKEN2049, the original price of using TADA Mini App to go from the city to the airport is about SGD 30, which is 60% more expensive than the average price of SGD 20 on the Grab platform. Users need to use the 50% discount to enjoy a more favorable price. price.
Image source: BlockBeats Left: Grab taxi fare; Right: TADA taxi fare
High platform revenue and low ride fees have also raised questions about TADA's source of subsidies and sustainability, and many users understand that this will not be the case forever unless TADA finds a way to make money in other ways. As of the time of writing, Singaporean users are no longer able to enjoy the 50% taxi subsidy through TON online payment.
$21M in annual revenue, Web3 consumer app running?
Interestingly, when many people used TADA for the first time, they mistook it for a traditional online ride-hailing platform. It was not until they saw the TADA booth at the TOKEN2049 main venue that they discovered that it turned out to be a blockchain company.
TADA’s parent company, Mass Vehicle Ledger (MVL), was founded in 2018 by Kay Kyeongsik Woo, the founder of Korean travel app easi6. Different from the traditional online car-hailing platform, MVL has been positioned as a blockchain company from the beginning, exploring the online car-hailing business through models such as the online car-hailing service TADA without platform commissions and token economic incentives. As TADA's business grew, MVL gradually grew into a company with more than 300 employees, covering industries such as mobility services, automobile manufacturing, energy and data.
Picture source: XTADA’s booth at TOKEN2049
Competition in Singapore's ride-hailing market is extremely fierce. According to Singapore's Land Transport Authority (LTA), since the number of taxis reached a peak of 28,736 in 2014, the number of taxis has dropped by more than half, falling to a new low of 13,330 in May this year. . At the same time, the number of private rental cars (including self-driving rentals and online ride-hailing vehicles) increased from 18,847 to 84,413 vehicles during the same period, an increase of 347%.
Currently, the five ride-hailing platforms licensed by the LTA are Grab, GoJek (GoTo), Zig (CDG), TADA and Ryde. In the first quarter of 2022, Grab’s market share reached 50%, while TADA only had about 10%.
Figure source: BlockBeats Singapore’s online ride-hailing market share in the first quarter of 2022
However, TADA's market position is gradually finding an advantage in the competition. In 2023, according to documents submitted to the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority of Singapore, the revenue of TADA's parent company, Mass Vehicle Ledger (MVL), increased from S$6.3 million in 2021 to S$6.3 million in 2021. From S$27.5 million in 2022, the company's losses also dropped from S$9.7 million in 2021 to S$5.4 million in 2022, a reduction of nearly 45%. More than half of revenue comes from travel and delivery services, while crypto accounts for 37% of total revenue. In the first quarter of 2024, with its entry into the Thai market, TADA CEO Sean Kim announced that TADA has become the ride-hailing platform with the second largest number of trips in Singapore. In addition, TADA’s expansion plans also include the Hong Kong and South Korean markets.
MVL is one of the industry pioneers in the exploration and promotion of cryptocurrency application scenarios. However, on the development path of "Web3 consumer applications", TADA's business is far from smooth sailing.
This successful attempt at Telegram Mini App is a new project launched by TADA in recent months, with the target audience clearly targeting attendees of various Web3 events in Southeast Asia. Prior to this, TADA had tried various new promotion activities such as "ride TADA and earn Bitcoins", "invite friends to join TADA and earn Bitcoins", but the team found that it was difficult to convince a person who had never been exposed to cryptocurrency. It is an extremely difficult and costly task for users to purchase cryptocurrency just for taking a taxi.
Before launching the Telegram Mini App, MVL regarded the provision of Web3 services for online ride-hailing drivers as its main business, including providing multi-chain wallets and DeFi products for drivers, DePIN data maps that provide better routes through data analysis, and providing prices for drivers. RWA vehicle projects for reasonable vehicles, etc., but it has always been difficult to make a splash in the market.
Therefore, starting from Web3 users and promoting the adoption of on-chain payments has become the core goal of the MVL team to launch the Telegram Mini App during the TOKEN2049 conference. As the saying goes, demand leads to applications. On the one hand, travel demand increased significantly during the conference. On the other hand, the pricing of platforms such as Grab is higher than TADA under the subsidy policy, and users are motivated to pursue cost-effectiveness. But with the end of the subsidy activity, although the taxi price higher than Grab will bring higher income to drivers, what is TADA’s competitiveness for consumers?
[Disclaimer] There are risks in the market, so investment needs to be cautious. This article does not constitute investment advice, and users should consider whether any opinions, views or conclusions contained in this article are appropriate for their particular circumstances. Invest accordingly and do so at your own risk.
This article is reprinted with permission from: "Rhythm Blockbeats"
Original author: Kaori, BlockBeats
