The number of corporate clients of the new taxi aggregator Bibi has reached 400 in two months since the launch of the project, a company representative told Vedomosti.
“Now we are already available in more than 1,000 cities and towns in Russia,” Anatoly Smorgonsky, CEO of Bibi in the Russian Federation, who previously led the Russian division of the Israeli taxi aggregator Gett, quoted the press service as saying. Bibi’s clients included, in particular, Miratorg, Don-Stroy, Ralf Ringer, Svyaz Engineering M and Fora-Bank. Bibi announced at launch that it was focusing on the b2b segment, but the company also works in the b2c direction.
As Lenta.ru reported, investments from China were attracted to launch Bibi (consonant with the name of the taxi aggregator Didi). The main staff of the company was made up of employees of the Russian division of Gett who were left without work, the publication noted. As Kommersant later wrote, Bibi uses technologies in applications that are in no way associated with Gett or other aggregators. The interlocutors of the publication also admitted that Chinese investors could take part in financing the project.
The Chinese taxi aggregator Didi stopped working in Russia and Kazakhstan from March 4, 2022, announcing this on February 21. The service has been operating in Russia since August 2020. The first city in the country where it became possible to order a taxi through a Chinese aggregator was Kazan. Later Didi services became available in 38 Russian cities.
Gett stopped operations in Russia on June 1st. Stanislav Schwagerus, head of the competence center of the Taxi International Eurasian Forum, told Vedomosti at the time that Gett’s departure from the Russian market “surprised no one.” The expert drew attention to the fact that over the past two years, the company began to lose its share in the Russian market and gradually move to the “virtual” aggregator model (since March 2021, Citymobile drivers have been allowed to fulfill Gett orders at the most popular “economy” tariff).
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