Europe’s Bolt ride hailing app has started recruiting drivers in Vietnam with the expectation it will start operating in the country at some point in the near future.
Of note, there have been a lot of ride-hailing firms entering the Vietnam market in the last few years. One of the most recent, Xanh GSM, which is a home grown firm connected to Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup, has spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying electric cars from its sister company VinFast which have flooded the streets of most Vietnamese cities.
This looks to be impacting traditional ride-hailing players with Indonesia’s Gojek announcing it would exit the market last year and Grab seeing its market share slip in some key demographics according to Decision Lab’s The Connected Consumer Q3 2024.
With an arguably saturated market it will be interesting to see how easily, if at all, Bolt can gain traction.
See also: Last-Mile Delivery in Vietnam