ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopian ride-hailing transport company El-Taxi Trading better known as Taxiye is almost penetrating into African market aiming at generating foreign currency and promoting tourism.
Approached by The Ethiopian Herald Taxiye Manager Tsedey Asfaw said that Taxiye is providing transport service in Kenya with about 8000 registered motorcycles .It has also finalized preparations to launch service in South Sudan next month.
The company is endeavoring to stretch its wings to 18 African countries where it got operational license, Tsedey expressed.
Taxiye’s sister company Elauto Assembly PLC Managing Director Bekele Abebe for his part noted that penetrating into African market like Kenya, South Sudan or Tanzania will enable the company to get more income and promote Ethiopian tourism in the respective countries.
“This is not only for direct increment on profit margin and market access but also for availing foreign currency to the country and increasing competitiveness at international market.” Bekele said that his company is also set to exploit the opportunity for exporting automobiles assembled here.
Taxiye is working in Ethiopia opening eight branches to provide latest taxi services via Taxiye application that comprises manual ride, shared ride, rental and corporate service options, Tsedey stated.
The company is mainly established to curb the problems of taxi drivers so that it has been working to enable partners to get latest automobiles and buy share from the company which is important to develop sense of belongings and ownership, as to Tsedey.
“Taxiye is primarily a taxi owners’ company since they have a say on it,” she remarked.
Working with its sister company Elauto, Taxiye is providing 2020 model latest cars for class A taxi service which help to keep comfort and security of regular customers and tourists in major destinations including Addis Ababa, Bahir Dar, Gondar, Dire Dawa and Mekele, she noted.
The company has handed over more than 90 taxis to transport service providers in the capital and other branches in various states. The taxis allotted in state branches mainly intended to serve tourists, according to Tsedey.
The cars do not only build the good image of the country but also help to protect the environment for their low carbon emission, she expressed.
Following the opening of the transportation and tourism industries after challenging times caused by coronavirus pandemic, the manager said “we expect high performance and securing better income by serving tourists either in major cities we are deployed or by means of outstation services.”
On the other hand, Taxiye has been giving trainings in safety, first aid and customer service to drivers through professionals in the sphere.
This is very important to the drivers to develop knowledge and skills to serve customers safely and decently so that they will get more customers next time, according to Tsedey.
For Bekele, Ethiopia is a gifted tourism destination for being diplomatic hub of the continent and having several manmade and natural tourist attractions.
Therefore all stakeholders need work closely to provide the needed service to increase number of tourists and the economic gain from it, he said.
Taxiye is working in this regard in providing latest transportation that helps visitors to get accessible, modern and secured service via online order, he mentioned.
“We will be promoting Ethiopian tourism in our branches in other African countries and inviting tourists to come to Ethiopia”.
Taxiye had been facilitating transportation with affordable price during the pandemic cutting its base fair that was fifty Birr, it was learnt.
Similarly, the pandemic also induced production delay and significant loss on Elauto [where Taxiye’s cars are assembled] due to the costs related to workers salary, factory, and storage and container rental payments among others, as to Bekele.
However, the company is solving the problem by continuing production with local workers assisted by Chinese partners communicating online due to the restriction on peoples’ movement in those hard days, according to the Managing Director.
Elauto and Taxiye were established by their mother company Elnet to provide ride hailing transport service with various modems but latest ones including Taxiye cars that are assembled by Elauto. Therefore, Elauto got into assembling automobiles here and it has been supplying them to market with almost cheap price. The working capital of the company has increased in a short period of time and it has sold about 1000 cars and paid not less than 13 million Birr for sales tax. The company has also created more than 50 jobs, it was learnt,
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