Uber alternative Hailo, which lets people hail a licensed taxi via smartphone app, is coming to the end of the road in London, as users are now being urged to switch to new ride-hailing vehicle, mytaxi.
Hailo users in London have until the end of May to switch — after which the app will be switched off.
Last July, the London-based company, which was started by ex-cabbies, sold a majority stake to car company Daimler, and announced plans to merge and rebrand with the latter’s on-demand taxi app, mytaxi — seeking greater scale across Europe.
The Hailo-mytaxi merger process is evidently taking a little time. Last month, the company announced the official launch of mytaxi in London but Hailo users were told to hang fire for further instructions on how to migrate their accounts.
That migration process is now live, with Hailo app users being directed via a personalized link to download mytaxi — avoiding the need for them to register, login or add account details.
“They are automatically logged in and their Hailo account details will be ready and waiting, meaning they can start hailing cabs straight away,” the company notes today.
Similarly, the brand merger was announced in another Hailo city, Barcelona, back in January, but the Hailo app hasn’t yet been switched off there entirely, either. But the eventual aim is to consolidate operations across Europe under the mytaxi brand.
“The next step is to migrate Hailo drivers and passengers in Spain. Once this is complete, the Hailo app will cease to exist,” a spokeswoman for the company confirmed.
Across Europe, mytaxi has around 100,000 registered drivers whose taxis can be hailed via the app, and is available in more than 50 cities across nine countries — with a tenth country (Greece) due to be added soon after mytaxi acquired local player Taxibeat last month.