Ridesharing app Uber launched its bike-sharing version 'uberMOTO' in Dhaka on Tuesday, thus venturing into the thriving local market for two-wheeler ride sharing.
The global tech giant entered the Bangladesh market back in November last year.
However, until recently, Uber's service range was limited to UberX and UberPREMIER-both of which used to offer four-wheeler-based ridesharing.
With this latest move, Uber joined the league of Pathao and a few other local ridesharing entities, which are already offering bike options as part of their services.
"With this launch, Uber will take another step forward in its efforts to redefine urban mobility in Dhaka that it started 11 months back with the launch of UberX and more recently with UberPREMIER," Uber said in a statement.
"The bike sharing product will bring another option to riders in Dhaka to get from point A to Point B at the tap of a button," it added.
uberMOTO is already available in India where it was launched a year ago. Apart from that, the product is also available in the South East Asian countries of Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.
"We are excited to be able to use our technology to not only contribute greatly towards improving urban mobility in Dhaka and in cutting congestion but also be instrumental in creating thousands of economic opportunities for the youth," General Manager of Uber in Dhaka Arpit Mundra said.
The fare of uberMOTO will be calculated by summing up the base fair, the amount of time travelled and the total distance covered. The base fare for ubarMOTO is Tk. 30 while per kilometer fare is Tk. 12 and per minute fair is Tk. 1-Uber officials informed.
Since the early part of this decade, instant ridesharing has become a growingly popular mode of transportation for commuters in big cities across the world.
However, in Bangladesh, it is relatively a new idea. US-based Datavoxel Ltd first brought an app based motorbike service in Bangladesh in May last year.
Consequently, international giant Uber and local provider Pathao were launched by the end of that year and currently around six to seven ride-sharing services are plying the roads of Dhaka.
According to market operators, big names like Uber, Pathao and Bahon altogether log in 10,000 rides a day on average-- although, insiders estimate that the actual number could be higher.
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