A Chinese company is preparing to enter Uzbekistan’s taxi market with a fleet of 5,000 vehicles and its own ride-hailing application, First Deputy Minister of Transport Mamanbiy Omarov told Spot.
Omarov noted that the company plans to begin practical operations in the country soon, although its name and the exact launch date have not been disclosed.
The planned entry comes amid disruptions in Uzbekistan’s taxi-hailing market. Since October 9, Yandex Go, one of the country’s most popular taxi services, has experienced large-scale technical problems that temporarily disrupted ride bookings in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The outages were linked to damage to the company’s Russian data centre following a drone attack, which brought down servers.
The disruption was followed by sharp increases in taxi fares in Uzbekistan. In response, the Competition Committee launched an investigation into the price hikes and called on taxi aggregators to review their pricing algorithms, address irregularities in driver payments and unblock drivers who had been unfairly suspended.
The arrival of a new operator with 5,000 vehicles could increase competition in Uzbekistan’s ride-hailing market, potentially giving passengers more options and putting pressure on existing platforms’ pricing. However, the company’s expected impact will depend on its launch timeline, geographical coverage and pricing strategy.