AFTER zero income during the movement-control order (MCO), Dego Ride’s bike taxi business is up 20% as the economy slowly recovers.

Founder Nabil Feisal Bamadhaj told The Malaysian Insight the MCO had hit the company hard, with demand falling 90%.

“MCO hit Dego Ride big time, as income from the motorcycle taxi service dropped to zero, but things are getting better recently as riders and customers are slowly coming back,” he said.

The MCO, enforced on March 18, forced it to stop its motorcycle taxi service and focus on other avenues for its riders to survive.

“We did not stop there. We had to expand our services to food and parcel deliveries to ensure the company continued to sustain and our riders able to generate income.”

As the country is now in the recovery MCO, Nabil said it’s constantly increasing the capacity of its riders to cater to demand.

Dego Ride is a motorcycle ride-sharing app that provides taxi and delivery services. It was founded by Nabil, also the chief executive officer, in 2015.

It launched in November 2016 and had about 5,000 riders registered at the time.

Nabil said at present, there are more than 1,000 riders who are permanent and part-timers but the company is now looking to get more riders on board to cope with the rising demand. 

More than 50% of the riders are young adults who have joined Dego for additional income opportunities.

“Based on what we know, they are generally related to the travel, hospitality and oil and gas industries.

“The number of participants was always growing even during MCO, but what is more important is the matching or the sustainability and equilibrium between our supply and the market demand for bike taxi and deliveries.”

He said in the last two months, they have seen an increase of 20% in revenue.

“The first four months were definitely bad, as we were only doing food and parcel deliveries.

“Now, since the motorcycle taxi service has resumed, the number of rides is increasing. But we think once this pandemic is over, the service will fully recover.”

Dego is now available at seven mass rapid transit stations in the Klang Valley – Muzium Negara, Pasar Seni, Merdeka, Pavilion Bukit Bintang, Tun Razak Exchange, Cochrane and Aeon Maluri.

Nabil said at the moment its focus is providing services for those in the Klang Valley.

“We recently launched a campaign with the MRT stations, with very attractive offers to provide better connectivity to and from the stations.

“We may expand to other areas in Malaysia next year if the economic environment is more favourable then.”

Dego charges RM3 for the first 3.5km and also provides RM5 to RM7 promotional coupons. – August 19, 2020.