While we all might recognize Jugnoo as the widely popular auto-rickshaw aggregator service, but the company is today leapfrogging beyond its restricted scope. It has announced the launch of taxi aggregation services on its platform to bank upon the agitation among drivers. This launch also comes with bike aggregation services in tow, another surprising launch.
The company has debuted its ride-hailing services, currently only available to users in Gurugram. This can be seen as a pilot program, which will expand to other cities in the coming weeks. Jugnoo already operates in several other segments, including hyperlocal meal, grocery, and food delivery. This launch also coincides with the recent rebranding of the company logo and application, which is more intuitive and easy-to-use than before.
With the acquisition of cab booking platform BookMyCab in July 2015, Jugnoo had been sitting on hot cakes and planning diversification of its business. It had been waiting for the right opportunity to enter the market. And the same knocked on its door when drivers working with Uber and Ola started complaining about the lack of earnings and incentives. These issues were pushing driver partners to switch platforms, and Jugnoo wanted to provide them with another alternative.
Talking about the said launch, Chinmay Agarwal, co-founder and COO of Jugnoo, says,
We at Jugnoo saw a vacuum in the taxi aggregation business in India. Weanalysed the issues faced by taxi drivers off late and have come up with a strategy to provide taxi services at prices where drivers do not work at artificially lower rates than their costs. At the moment, the existing players have not been able to balance this and therefore, we intend to fill in the gaps.
Further, in the aforementioned statement, Jugnoo says that they’re looking to also solve the problem of artificially crafted rates — which are lower than the cost of rides. The lower rates surely benefit users taking the rides but drivers have to suffer at their expense. Jugnoo is, thus, offering its cab aggregation services at rates higher than current operators. You’ll be required to pay Rs. 30 as the base fare, along with Rs. 12 per kilometer and Rs. 1 per minute of ride time for Jugnoo cab rides.
Launched in 2014 by IIT Delhi alumni Samar Singla and Chinmay Agarwal, Jugnoo is now trying to enter a turf particularly dominated by players like homegrown Ola and its rival Uber Technologies. The company has raised more than $16 million in four funding rounds until date. It is currently operational in 40 cities with over 12,000 autos on board. It claims to clock in 40,000 transactions on a daily basis.
While the most prominent ride-hailing giants are involved in an ongoing battle for market shares (defined by their driver and user base), the auto-rickshaw aggregator is now eyeing a share of that pie. The market is currently dominated by Ola (operating in over 200 cities) but Uber (though their presence is restricted to 29 cities) is giving Ola a run for its money. Jugnoo is starting operations with just one city.
The bike aggregation service, on the other hand, hasn’t gained any mentions in the press but it’s now appearing in our app on Android. The said service is now appearing for us in Jaipur, but there is a huge lack of drivers. Jugnoo now needs to aggressively onboard driver partners on their platform to instigate its competitors, but the pricing scheme (and the vision behind it) could cost them. But, this move may lead the other players to accept this scheme and increase prices — reduce discounts and offers to save some necessary cash.
But, will Jugnoo ever be able to catch up with the bigwigs of the aggregator ecosystem? Comment your thoughts down below.
