Indonesia's largest taxi operator sees demand rebound as Covid-19 curbs ease

Jakarta

PT Blue Bird, Indonesia's largest taxi operator, has seen a sharp rebound in demand for its services since the authorities began easing social distancing rules to revive the nation's economy, according to president director Noni Purnomo.

About half of the company's 20,000 taxis have returned to service, prompting the operator to call more drivers to rejoin duty, Ms Purnomo said. Demand for Blue Bird's taxi services had plunged 80 per cent at the peak of the Covid-19 outbreak in capital Jakarta in April, she said.

For Ms Purnomo, who took over the helm of the Jakarta-based company a year ago, the challenge from the pandemic is far from over as Indonesia continues to see a surge in new virus cases with the authorities ramping up testing.

While Jakarta began unwinding some social distancing rules, much of the archipelago still has some kind of curbs on mobility, hurting demand for transport services.

Blue Bird is bracing for a slow reboot to Indonesia's economy that's been ravaged by the outbreak. Southeast Asia's largest economy may start recovering only from August, Ms Purnomo said.

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"Under such scenario, by middle of next year we can go back to the level that we have seen in January or February this year," she said in an interview on Wednesday.

The slump in its core business has forced Blue Bird to rework its capital spending strategy, Ms Purnomo said, adding that it has decided to postpone the expansion of its electric vehicle fleet by adding electric cars made by Tesla Inc and BYD Co until demand recovers and the company's financial conditions improve.

"We had a number of electric cars ready to be delivered in March but we decided against that as we don't want to deploy the resources there for the time being," Ms Purnomo said.

Blue Bird shares have slumped 55 per cent this year, outpacing the 21 per cent decline in the benchmark Jakarta Composite Index, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. BLOOMBERG