In an effort to bridge the gaps of transport accessibility through car-sharing, motorcycle and car-sharing company, Tribecar will now enable residents in selected BTO estates to rent new cars, right from the convenience of their carpark.
Tribecar will kick off the initiative with an introductory fleet in five BTO estates, Sun Breeze, Yung Ho Spring, Buangkok Square, West Terra @ Bukit Batok, and Matilda Court, and increase availability with demand.
Previously, Tribecar’s vehicles were only available to be picked up at carparks near MRT stations.
All new users will also enjoy free car rentals for the first three hours as part of their introductory offer.
Adrian Lee, co-founder of Tribecar, said in a statement, “Launching this BTO estate-focused initiative is just another way we can meet new customer expectations.”
Tribecar also announced that they’ve achieved record growth in FY2019.
They grew close to 50% increase in users and almost 50% in revenue growth to about S$7.5 million in FY2018.
Membership also rose by almost 50% and the fleet now has 350 cars, of which 20% are new cars bought within the last six months.
The company, founded in 2015, traded in one-third of their current fleet to new cars through their fleet partners while keeping prices at almost the same price as the outgoing cars for its users.
It has also invested over S$3 million in research and development from its profits to accelerate product development.
Tribecar described itself as “an atypical startup company”.
It does not plan to take up any venture money and chooses to grow internally, but it is looking to grow beyond their core business by partnering and providing car rental companies with their car-sharing technology.
This goes beyond the business-to-consumer model and now see business-to-business as a way to hasten car-sharing adoption in Singapore.
Tribecar currently has two clients using their car-sharing technology in Singapore and are in talks to roll out to one more soon.
Adrian said, “It is our belief that it is only through cooperation with other businesses then can we make a real and big enough difference to Singaporeans’ lives.”
The firm is also looking at introducing special occasion cars such as the Volkswagen Beetles, Mini Coopers alongside more practical vehicles like Mitsubishi L200 Double-Cab pick-up trucks by the third quarter of 2019.
“Tribecar is extremely focused on what our users want. With a wide variety of vehicles in our fleet for rent, customers can get vans when they go shopping at IKEA, luxury cars when they go on dates, family MPVs when they take trips to Johor Bahru, and motorcycles to do part-time food deliveries.”
Just in time for Chinese New Year this year, Tribecar launched its car rental services to cater to drivers under 23 and saw use by over 1,000 new drivers.
Tribecar customers can access all the cars in their fleet 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with prices starting from $2/hour.
Customers are not bound by contracts, membership, or mileage fees, and just need to simply pay for the time they rent the car.
Their cars are approved for commercial use, so Tribecar customers can use rented cars for deliveries, or to provide ride-hailing services.
“All things considered, it has been a wonderful year for Tribecar, which prides itself on what we are doing… [a tech startup that] is profitable from early days,” Adrian stated.
“As we continue to grow and expand, we are thankful to our loyal customers for having the trust in us and continue to show their support to Tribecar.”
He added, “From the very start, our goal was to make cars cheaper and more accessible to all Singaporeans. We do that with technology. The bigger picture was always beyond helping just Tribecar’s community, we wanted to extend our technology to other car rental companies, which we have done since this year.”
Find out more about Tribecar’s new offering here.
Featured Image Credit: Tribecar
