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<ul><li>In 2020, despite the pandemic-induced lockdown bringing mobility services to a complete standstill, homegrown bike-taxi platform <keyword id="3269053" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Rapido">Rapido</keyword> shifted its gears to focus on what’s important. </li><li>It was quick to bounce back as it continued to engage with its customers through digital mediums and by accelerating its logistics business towards providing essential services. </li><li>For 2021, Rapido has earmarked $20M in marketing spends. We caught up with Amit Verma, Head of Marketing, Rapido to further discuss the company's plans for FY22 and how it will go about spending its marketing monnies. </li></ul>Tapping on the scope of growth in the mobility category, Rapido, India’s first and the largest Bike-Taxi platform has earmarked USD 20 million for its marketing activities in 2021. According to PGA Labs, bike taxi service is now a $150 million market, growing at 20% month-over-month. In India, 300 million people commute every day out of which only 1% of bookings happen via apps and only 20% of India owns private vehicles today. It is estimated that bike taxis in India have the potential to create 5+ million livelihood opportunities, generating a revenue of $10 billion. In 2020, after the nation-wide lockdown was lifted and consumers were still concerned about stepping out and using public vehicles, they turned to private vehicle providers like Rapido for safe and secure commutes. Now, as the market has started limping towards normalcy, Rapido is putting its best foot forward to increase brand awareness and acquire new users. Amit Verma, Head of Marketing, Rapido said, “The market is now opening up and the overall number of COVID-19 cases are going down, so we thought now this is the right time that we can increase our spends. We also want to grow 100% maybe in the next 12-13 months. And we have set aside $20 million for marketing in FY22, which will mostly be spent to acquire new users and spread awareness of Rapido as a brand.” Verma said that it was because of Rapido’s marketing efforts that it continued to acquire new users despite a recession. It also decided to pivot its focus on accelerating the existing logistics business model such as delivering essentials at home, supporting the government to resolve supply-chain challenges, etc. As a result, 25% of its business bounced back in June 2020. He said, “Unfortunately, the last financial year started with the COVID-19. The operations came to a halt during those few months and post that, when we started our operations, we were really frugal and trying to optimize our marketing spends. And just because of that, we are focusing on marketing well this year.” From the $20 million marketing budget, Rapido has decided to spend 50% on digital media. “Our lion’s share of the $20 million, around 50-60%, will be spent on digital. A major share within digital will go on performance marketing. Post that, we are going to spend a lot on traditional mediums as well which includes TV, radio and outdoor media because our TG spends a significant amount of time on these mediums. Apart from that, we are putting a lot of focus on improving user experience. So we might do more activities to enhance in-app user experience through brand campaigns and digital activities,” explained Verma. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Winning consumers with a bullish marketing campaign" text="Winning consumers with a bullish marketing campaign">Winning consumers with a bullish marketing campaign</cmsannotation> From a rap jingle to partnering with celebrities and other media houses, Rapido tried to woo its customers with one message across all platforms - how Rapido is ensuring safe commutes, which is affordable and accessible in every nook of top 100 cities. Its strategy was multilingual and regional. After securing a leadership position in the Bike-Taxi ecosystem across cities, it is hoping to increase its user base and brand recognition. Walking us through Rapido’s future marketing plans, Verma shared, “There are two things we are planning for next year. First, there will be a few brand campaigns which will focus on polishing the upper funnel, that is, increasing brand awareness and making our brand top of the mind (whether it be aided or unaided recall). That is our first objective. We might do two to three brand campaigns followed by some sustenance campaigns. And apart from that, we're also planning to do quite a few content integrations with content partners like TVF, Pocket Aces, Pocket Media, so that we can keep a continuity alive, and we can engage with our user base as well.” Currently, Rapido’s Creative agency-on-record is Enormous Brands, GroupM will be handling its TV, print and radio and Laqshya Media Group has been awarded brand’s OOH duties. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Goals for FY22" text="Goals for FY22">Goals for FY22</cmsannotation> Rapido was growing at around 15% month-on-month for the last 3 years before the pandemic-infused lockdown hit India. It also doubled its presence from 50 cities to 100 in the second half of 2020. Now, it is eyeing to grow by 100%. “If you compare it with pre-Corona, we were doing 10 million rides per month. So for the next 12 to 13 months, we are again aiming 100% growth on that base,” said Verma. Rapido has recorded over 20 million app downloads so far and Verma said that the company will try to double its downloads by the end of FY22.

Exclusive: Rapido earmarks $20 million for marketing in FY22 to gain new users and spread brand awareness

<ul><li><keyword id="3269053" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Rapido">Rapido</keyword> is aiming to achieve at least 1.5x growth than last fiscal. It is the only mobility company that is eyeing profits this year. </li><li>Rapido has already seen 25% of its business bouncing back. </li><li>Pavan Guntupalli, Co-founder, Rapido, talks to us about the story behind launching the brand, its growth, and mantra behind its road to profitability. </li></ul>The lockdown impacted most businesses across the globe. Some shut down and some learnt how to evolve with the changing tides. Home-grown brand Rapido, a Bike-Taxi service provider, saw its revenue plunge in the first two months after COVID hit the country and people were locked inside the four walls of their houses. With it, mobility came to a complete standstill. However, it soon saw a silver lining in June and July as 25% of its business bounced back. One of the reasons behind this demand was that people started avoiding public places and transport. Although, according to Rapido, 80% of India still doesn’t own private vehicles and due to COVID, they needed a safe and secure commute. This presented an opportunity in adversity for Rapido. Explaining why the brand’s demand came back, Pavan Guntupalli, Co-founder, Rapido, said, “Customers became aware that bike taxi is a more open and personalized way for intra-city travel. The customer has an advantage of less exposure to any infection due to his/her limited interaction with the captain (driver) and less touch points.” People also started renting its bikes for longer commutes. “Our average distance has suddenly changed, earlier people were using us for the last mile 3-5km but suddenly because of unavailability of regular public transport, our average distance has increased to 35% in some cities and overall, we saw 25% increase. Now people are using us for home to home travel and not just for last mile connectivity. Somewhere in December, we are hoping to come back to 100% of our business as before,” said Guntupalli. Shifting gears Rapido was growing at around 15% month-on-month from the last 3 years before the pandemic-infused lockdown hit India. It also doubled its presence from 50 cities to 100 in 6 months. Post lockdown, it had to shift its business model from offering bikes and taxies from consumers to distributors. Around 92% of its business came from bike and taxi model (intra-city mobility) and 8% came from logistics (essential supplies). Now, 30% of its total business comes from logistics and 70% from bike taxis. So, it decided to pivot its focus on accelerating the existing logistics business model by following a few initiatives such as delivering essentials at home, supporting the government to resolve supply-chain challenges, etc. “Rapido has been operating delivery services for e-commerce companies for close to 2 years now namely Zomato, Swiggy, Delhivery.com, Myntra, Eat.Fit. SuprDaily, Mapprr, 24*7 Stores, Kalerya, Bharatpe. During the lockdown, we amped up the existing Rapido-Delivery services to provide for the delivery of essential goods and partnered with major online companies like Big Bazaar, Big Basket and Spencer’s for delivery of essential goods,” shared Guntupalli. Building on the demand for logistics further, Rapido launched Rapido Local, a person-to-person delivery service. “Rapido Store is a convenient tool for offline and online businesses to help them reach out and deliver products to their customers in these challenging times. Rapido Store helps local businesses take care of multiple customer deliveries simultaneously in the most affordable and trusted manner. The service is currently operational in Bangalore &amp; Vijayawada and will scale to all cities Rapido is present in,” explained Guntupalli. Marketing Strategy and Understanding Consumers To gain its consumers' trust in a volatile market, Rapido introduced Safety Shields that helped consumers to maintain a safe distance from the driver or Captain, as Rapido calls them. <div type="image" title="rapido safety shields" msid="78221466" hostid="261"></div> Guntupalli said, “The Shield weighs around 400 gms -- it is a lightweight, PVC board that is attached to the Captain’s back like a rucksack. The shield covers the Captain’s body and makes for a considerable distance between the customer and our Captain. Apart from the usual measures, like using masks, sanitizers and the ArogyaSetu App, that we have taken, we felt the Safety Shields will be an added measure of safety during the rides.” It also tweaked its marketing strategy to increase awareness about the safety measures they followed. Its strategy is multi-lingual and regional. “We are trying to help change consumer behaviour towards safety, by helping them embrace the new norms through best practices when it comes to precautions, like bringing their own helmet, and avoiding stepping out. We also ensure that we leverage push notifications, SMS, emailers, in-app training videos, social media campaigns and marketing campaigns in various languages like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi, to communicate regularly on our company updates and initiatives. We recently launched our first-ever video campaign, #PromiseofProtection, that showcases Rapido’s commitment to the safety and protection of its users, through an understanding of different relationships in our lives. In the initial phase of COVID, we launched a fundraiser for the Captains to provide them with the support they needed to weather the difficult times,” said Guntupalli. Goals for this fiscal As we inch towards normalcy and people have started stepping out, Rapido is aiming to achieve at least 1.5x growth over last fiscal. It is the only mobility company that is eyeing profits this year. According to PGA Labs, bike taxi service is now a $150 million market, growing at 20% month-over-month. In India 300 million people commute every day out of which only 1% happens via apps. It is estimated that bike taxis in India have the potential to create 5+ million livelihood opportunities, generating a revenue of $10 billion. With rapid urbanisation and smart status of cities, bike-taxi is becoming the future of intra-city transport. Due to COVID, they are also avoiding public transport. As a result, Rapido has become the third largest ride sharing platform in the country that sees around 10 million transactions in a month. Now, after securing a leadership position in the Bike Taxi ecosystem across cities, Rapido’s next focus area is to use technology to propel newer models that will help serve end users as well as businesses in the post COVID world. However, vehicle ownership in India is less. Hardly 18-20% people own a vehicle, that means 80% people still don’t have their own vehicle. When the pandemic hit, a huge problem statement was the need for a safe and secure commute. This became an opportunity in adversity for Rapido, as it saw a 25% spike in the month of June and July. Where it all began Rapido introduced bike sharing in our country in 2015. The product was built to bridge the last mile connectivity gaps. People in Tier II, III and beyond towns and cities have limited public transport solutions, some are not even available late in the evenings, making it difficult to look for an affordable option to travel within the city and getting shared autos are a hassle especially if you are a woman. However, being a first mover has its own set of challenges. Rapido was dealing with both cultural and social challenges. People did not feel comfortable sitting behind a stranger. So to woo consumers, Rapido took a quirky route. Guntupalli said, “We took a multilingual approach for our consumer outreach. The idea was to reach larger sets of audiences across Tier I, II and III cities and build affinity with the message. We worked on short, quirky videos that are a trend among tech-savvy millennials. We introduced the brand in a fun and different way to them through 7 videos with themes such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgGQYrlpRHA">Don’t be late, Save Your Date</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMOxf64njqE">KabhiBhiKahinBhi</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXPThvwLKSo">Don’t’ Get Crushed Away In Traffic</a>,<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbvxRnLayYI"> Late for Exam, Just Stay Calm</a>.” It also partnered with traffic police in cities like Vijayawada, Mangalore, Mysore, Kota to name a few, to drive awareness about road safety with helmet distribution campaigns. To make its women customers feel safer, Rapido masks their phone numbers from its captains. It was also the first bike taxi company in India to introduce insurance for both customers and Captains from Day 1. Rapido is now present in 100 cities serving over 10 million customers with 15 lakh+ registered Captains. It is the 3rd largest ride sharing platform in the country with 10 million transactions a month and has recorded over 25 million app downloads.

Rapido shifts focus to logistics; sees 25% business recovery and aims for 1.5x growth next year over FY20

<ul><li>Mini apps are a ‘custom-built mobile website’ with the same functionalities as a regular app. </li><li><keyword id="6357120" type="DEFINITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="paytm">Paytm</keyword> is offering no fees currently for developers to list and distribute their apps on the platform.</li><li>Over 300 app-based service providers such as Decathlon, Ola, Park+, Rapido, Netmeds, 1MG, Domino's Pizza, FreshMenu, NoBroker have already joined the program. </li></ul>After reports of Indian startups getting together to launch their own app store to tackle Google’s monopoly, Paytm has now announced that it has launched an Android mini-app store for Indian developers. "I am proud that we are today launching something that creates an opportunity for every Indian app developer. <keyword id="10051089" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="paytm-mini-app-store">Paytm Mini App Store</keyword> empowers our young Indian developers to leverage our reach and payments to build new innovative services. For Paytm users, it will be a seamless experience that doesn't require any separate download and enables them to use their preferred payment option,” said Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Founder &amp; CEO, Paytm in a statement. <div type="image" title="Paytm" msid="78485082" hostid="261"></div> Mini apps are a ‘custom-built mobile website’ with the same functionalities as a regular app. It is a hybrid solution between a website and an app. The mini-app store also has its own developer dashboard analytics, payment collection methods, and marketing tools. “Paytm has created the digital infrastructure to enable small developers and businesses to set up low-cost, quick-to-build mini-apps which can be built using HTML and javascript technologies,” said the company. Paytm is offering no fees currently for developers to list and distribute their apps on the platform. According to the company’s statement, over 300 app-based service providers such as Decathlon, Ola, Park+, Rapido, Netmeds, 1MG, Domino's Pizza, FreshMenu, NoBroker have already joined the program. The development comes as many recent moves from Google have put Indian startups in a tough spot. It began with Paytm being removed for a few hours from the Play Store. Google had said that Paytm violated rules regarding fantasy gaming promotions. This was followed by Google rolling out new payment policies where developers would have to pay a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/google-plans-to-shut-the-loophole-that-lets-netflix-spotify-and-tinder-avoid-paying-its-30-app-tax/articleshow/78383294.cms">30% tax</a> on all in-app purchases and even included entertainment, education, dating, and fitness apps in the list. However, Google has <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/google-defers-move-to-levy-30-fee-to-april-2022/articleshow/78484208.cms">reportedly </a>deferred this new policy until April 2022. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/top-stocks-to-watch-ril-tcs-hcl-tech-hero-motocorp-vedanta-solar-industries-iti-and-others/articleshow/78484703.cms">Top stocks to watch— RIL, TCS, HCL Tech, Hero MotoCorp, Vedanta, Solar Industries, ITI and others</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/paytm-trains-its-guns-on-google-while-the-payments-app-is-back-in-play-store/articleshow/78190088.cms">INTERVIEW: Paytm trains its guns on Google while the payments app is back in Play Store</a>

Vijay Shekhar Sharma fires the shots – Paytm launches its own Android mini-app store to take on Google

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Exclusive: Rapido earmarks $20 million for marketing in FY22 to gain new users and spread brand awareness

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Rapido shifts focus to logistics; sees 25% business recovery and aims for 1.5x growth next year over FY20

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Vijay Shekhar Sharma fires the shots – Paytm launches its own Android mini-app store to take on Google

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