Ride-Sharing: Impact in Bangladesh
Bangladesh has always been an eager nation when it comes to technology adoption. The recent encouragement from the government to a more ‘Digital Bangladesh’ has nothing but facilitated this growth further.
With this positive attitude towards technology and change, smartphone and internet users in Bangladesh are on the rise. This means more and more citizens of the country now avail digital services of all sorts and the numbers speak for themselves. It is the 9th largest market in terms of number of subscribers in the world.
The users of mobile phones amounted to 85 million just last year with the number of internet users also growing by a large margin. Just from 2013 to 2018, the number of people who had access to the internet rose from 30.48 million to a staggering 90.05 million.
With this much-accelerated growth, mobile internet users stood at a healthy 80.47 million in 2018. One of the core additions and benefits with this surge of internet users and the digital age has been ride-sharing. With homegrown app OBHAI, more and more people than ever are now getting used to the convenience of ride-sharing to commute around the city. Be it for work or to meet friends, ride-sharing has carved a special place in people’s daily lives.
“My university is not that far from where I live. But I still find myself getting an OBHAI when I have classes.It is simply more convenient and saves my time” says AdibaNawar, a 4thyear university student. The core problem that OBHAI seeks to solve is the hassle of transportation and commuting. With reliable and various transportation options, OBHAI has something to offer for all kinds of customers.
Combined with the convenience of OBHAI and the safety of its trained drivers, the homegrown ride-sharing app helps the people of the country to move out and about. In a recent survey of the ride-sharing industry in Bangladesh, 37% of the respondents preferred cars, 33% preferred to use motorbikes. Whereas 27% of the people surveyed did not have any preference. The rest3% of the customers use both.
To meets the needs of every customer, the app provides four modes ofprimary transport – OBHAI G (car), OBHAI MOTO, OBHAI CNGs and OBON (a female exclusive ride-sharing service in Dhaka). The app operates in a total of 23 cities and aims to provide safe and reliable commuting services to the masses.
With its high priority in safety and reliability, the app started operations in 2018. OBHAI also operates a 24/7 hotline (16633) where customers can call and ask to book a ride if they find themselves without an internet connection.