Does that name sound a bit too familiar?
After Uber's exit from the Southeast Asian market, a number of ride-sharing platforms such as Indonesian Go-Jek, Singaporean MVL and local outfits VATO and T.NET have all announced their entrances into Vietnam's market, threatening Grab's monopoly. The latest competitor in the market is Aber — a ride-hailing app developed in 2015 by a group of young Vietnamese engineers who are studying in Europe.
Despite the uncanny resemblance between Aber's name and the now-unavailable Uber, Huynh Le Phu Phong, Aber's business development director, explained that Aber is short for Am Besten Fahrer — which translates to "the best driver" in German — and Absolute Driver in English.
According to Sai Gon Giai Phong, the Aber app launched on June 8 with six services including Aber Bike, Aber Car, Aber Truck, Aber Travel, Aber Business and Aber Express. The company said it will focus on its two ride-sharing services at the moment and in the near future. It's still unclear at the time of writing how Aber's other services will operate.
Potential users and drivers can look forward to a few attractive features from Aber: the company guaranteed that Aber will not surge its price during rush hours, a practice employed by both Grab and Uber, which received a considerable amount of criticism from users.
According to Phong, drivers can expect to benefit more from the app as Aber will eliminate the fee commission model seen in many ride-hailing platforms. Instead, it will charge a monthly service maintenance fee for bike drivers who make more than VND499,000 a month and car drivers who make more than VND4,999,000 a month. The fee starts at VND70,000 for bike drivers and VND750,000 for car drivers and will get higher as drivers make more income.
[Photo via The Gioi Di Dong]
