We provide smart taxi and ride-sharing services to create job opportunities and creatively increase income.
By : Mohamed Elkhoy
Soogny Maak, the technology-based ride-sharing solutions company based in Sudan, intends to attract investments in an amount of one Million USD during the current year of 2023. As part of its adopted investment plan, the Company provides new first-of-its-kind service and unique concept of ride sharing applications that lead to creating new market, not only in Sudan, but in the Middle East in general.
The Company has particularly planned to expand into a number of neighboring countries to Sudan, at the head of which are Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia.
The ride-sharing app, Soogny Maak, was launched during 2021 by the young entrepreneur Mohamed Ibrahim Al-Fadl, in order to address the challenges of Sudan’s transport market and the lack of structured and organized transportation network in nearly 18 states of Sudan.
The founder and CEO of Soogny Maak Mohamed Ibrahim states that the application enables drivers to share their rides with other users. Ride sharing allows drivers to add round trips for ride-sharing users with competitive prices, increasing the drivers’ income and ensuring users’ savings and convenience.
He adds that the application intends to solve most problems incurred by transportation network stakeholders in Sudan and low- and middle-income car owners who do not have an opportunity to work for taxi applications, due to reasons ranging from lack of time to maintaining of their vehicles or non-fulfillment of vehicle requirements of taxi applications.
Accordingly, Soogny Maak creates a new concept of transportation market and traveling among states, whether in Sudan or Middle East.
With respect to competition, Ibrahim describes it as near-zero. The smart transport application has been first launched in Sudan since roughly 5 years. It is available only in the Capital, along with two other applications.
Therefore, the market needs more of these applications. Soogny Maak features a new competitive edge in ride-sharing service, where users with same destination can request a ride sharing with car owners for a fee charged by the application.
The application contributes to increasing the driver’s income and users’ convenience; it also offers another service -- private ride or smart taxi.
He points out that Soogny Maak targets drivers of taxi applications, clients of taxi applications, public transport users, drivers traveling among cities and passengers of charter buses. The application competes to offer drivers high competitive prices more than other applications. Clients will not bear the rate differentials. At the same time, users will enjoy a low price for their rides compared to similar applications.
Ibrahim highlights that investments made in the application have been autonomous, amounting to more than 80 thousand USD during the highly successful and widely accepted pilot phase.
The application has been downloaded by roughly 11 thousand drivers, and 17 thousand clients who have downloaded it via Google Play in less than a month’s time since its launch. The application founder adds that he aspires to attract investments in an amount of Millions USD within the current year of 2023, intending to have it used in application development and expansion along with advertisement, marketing and administrative aspect.
As part of women empowerment, the application offers Princesa service, which enables women to use their cars and increase their income through the application. For more security, they can offer their ride-hailing service to women only.
Soogny Maak founder draws attention to the fact that creating a new market requires much time and effort, along with an incredibly additional share of marketing and promotion of the service. This will lead to accommodating the new idea within the community, making it one of the most significant challenges facing the team.
He adds that the application is available in Sudan. It targets an expansion into Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Ethiopia’s markets within the upcoming two years, according to their strategic plans of expansion.
