CEO of ride-hailing service Be steps down

According to a statement by Be Group, Hai cited personal reasons for his resignation, but will continue as an advisor for the board of directors.

Nguyen Hoang Phuong, another co-founder and the group's chief operating officer, has taken over as CEO, the Be Group said in its statement.

The statement also said the company will continue to aggressively pursue current development strategies in the near future to consolidate its ride-hailing service and increase its market share in 2020.

During Hai’s tenure at the top, the Be Group launched a range of ride hailing, online payment and delivery services including beBike, beCar, beFinancial, beExpress, beDelivery.

Be currently holds second position in Vietnam’s ride-hailing market, accounting for 16 percent of market share in terms of ride-hailing trips in the first half of 2019, behind Singapore’s Grab which had 73 percent, and followed by Indonesia’s Go-Viet with 10.3 percent, according to a report by global market advisory firm ABI Research.

The company claims to have 60,000 partner drivers and 350,000 daily service requests as of December this year.

Be Group, which entered the market last December after Indonesian Go-Jek’s affiliate Go-Viet and local firm FastGo were launched, had said it hopes to become a big player like Grab or Go Viet with a comprehensive super-app.

Vietnam’s ride-hailing and food delivery market size was $500 million last year and could reach $2 billion by 2025, according to a report released last year by Google and Singapore sovereign fund Temasek.