By Gleb Stolyarov
ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) – Yandex.Drive, the car-sharing firm owned by Russian internet group Yandex, will launch a platform to customers that can be used to operate their own vehicle fleets, the company’s head of e-commerce and ride-tech business said.
The new platform, which has been tested on a Yandex.Drive fleet of about 16,000 vehicles, would be offered to taxi companies, freight operators and logistics firms around the globe, Daniil Shuleiko told Reuters.
“I think that this will be a very significant share in the revenue of the (car-sharing) service,” Shuleiko said.
Revenue in the taxi business jumped 89% year on year to 26.6 billion roubles ($369 million) in the first quarter, while Yandex.Drive revenue amounted to 2.5 billion roubles.
The platform monitors vehicle movements, providing driving profiles and identifying dangerous driving. It also helps predict emergency situations and forecasts fuel consumption.
($1 = 72.0175 roubles)
(Reporting by Gleb Stolyarov; Writing by Anna Rzhevkina; Editing by Katya Golubkova, Jason Neely and Edmund Blair)
