Facing Competition, Taxi Issuers Hesitant to Expand

Two taxi issuers, namely PT Express Transindo Utama (TAXI) Tbk and PT Blue Bird (BIRD), together lowered their capital expenditure budget.

Ekspress Transindo set this year’s capital expenditure budget to a maximum of Rp 300 billion from Rp 430 billion last year, while Blue Bird reduced its capex to Rp 1 trillion to Rp 1.2 trillion, compared to last year’s Rp 1.5 trillion.

“We have not dared being aggressive in expansion, seeing people’s purchasing power and intense competition, both from the other taxi operator and online motorcycle and taxi. In the face of competition, Express will focus on the utilization of the fleet by launching the application through phone reservations,” said David Santoso, Director of Finance Express Transindo.

Meanwhile, Adrianto Djokosoetono, Director of the Blue Bird still could not confirm the addition of the fleet until the end of this year. “The fleet will depend on the economic conditions, if the economy improves we will be more aggressive,” he said.

Until late last year, the fleet owned Express Transindo reached 11,608 units and a fleet of Blue Bird reached 33,000 units.(*)