Taxi without call

State-of-the-art technologies stretch a helping hand to passengers in a hurry. Over the past years transportation services through mobile apps have widely spread and they are now available in Armenia as well.

Founded in the U.S. in 2009, Uber is one of the global leaders of this service. As of December 2014, the services of the company valued at USD 40 billion are available in over 200 cities in 53 countries.

However, it turns out not many people like Uber and its “analogs”. Taxi services and governments are in constant struggle against them claiming Uber provides illegal transportation services.

Uber’s business model known as Uberification has been employed by a number of large companies, including Lyft, Sidecar and Haxi.

Uberification in Armenia or ggTaxi

With 10 thousand registered users, 140 active drivers and daily 150 bookings, ggTaxi was the first to offer such services in Armenia.

The startup, which has been operating for around a year, was developed by “GG Laboratories”.

ggTaxi can be booked in various ways – through an  Android and IOS-based app, website or a call.

“There is no taxi service for the whole city, and therefore we prefer to work with individual taxi drivers. We also want to “build” in the minds of people the idea of not calling a taxi but a gg car”, Co-Founder at GG Laboratories Khachatur Grigorian told Itel.am.


Khachatur Grigorian

According to him, there is a driver assessment system and if the passenger is not happy with a certain driver’s service, then it is ruled out that driver will ever again serve them.

According to Khachatur Grigorian, presently Yerevan’s market is quite saturated in terms of taxis, and they need to “unite good drivers and customers”.

As to regions, he believes the issue will be resolved this year. After attaining progress in the Armenian market, the company considers entering new markets, particularly, in Iran, Georgia and Russia.

Touching upon funding-related issues, Khachatur Grigorian said that startup-venture fund cooperation field is yet not formed in Armenia.

“The field will be considered as “formed” after there is a visible outcome of the investments those funds made. The venture funds should also be sure of being able to launch vigorous activities. Presently, this confidence lacks, and there is a certain fear when making an investment. Those funds should also educate startups and teach them how to introduce themselves to potential investors”, he summed up.

P.S. Itel.am attempted to contact other companies offering such services in Armenia but did not manage to reach them.

Narine Daneghyan