Smart Ticketing For a Smart Future

While I am extremely proud of what our team accomplished in 2022, I would not want to revisit it, ever. At the year’s start we already faced serious challenges since the global pandemic had cut deeply into our core business of mobile ticketing, squeezing our cash flow and freezing our expansion plans.

These days every new smartphone application is fighting for the user’s attention, but users are getting tired and overwhelmed with the continuous need for more and more single purpose apps. The more customer demand one app can cover, the better value the user receives.

Pollution. Traffic jams. Not enough parking.

The current need for better public transport systems and a greener future are clear. As of now, mass transit creates 25% of CO2 emissions in Europe, but the industry is facing a change as Europe aims to become the first climate neutral continent.

The shift to mobile may be old news in some industries, but in others, like mobility, it still powers significant change. That’s at least our explanation for our growing num­bers. For example, at the beginning of 2022, we saw the best daily sales in the history of PayiQ.

It’s no secret that running a smart mobility company has been challenging when people stay at home. But now, the tide is turning, and we are in an excellent position to ride the recovery wave. For PayiQ, Q3/21 was our best quarter ever. People are moving again, both our revenue and customer base hit new highs, and we just finished a successful investment round.

The trend of Super Apps is coming to the West from the East, where the biggest players have won the attention of users and become front-screen apps that continuously add new services. While many Super Apps originated from messenger services, there are other players, such as Grab, Gojek and Ola, which started from the transportation business. And we believe this origin brings tremendous potential for an app to become Super App.

No one would like to revisit 2020, but the transition to 2021 doesn’t feel easy either. While 2020 was a battle for survival for many, 2021 might be the battle for the survival of the fittest. It is a somewhat exhausting thought but at the same time an invigorating opportunity.

Nowadays we observe how many banks are going through metamorphosis towards high-tech companies with a banking license. Many banks started to apply the term “ecosystem” in their business vocabulary. Big actors are aiming to become serious competitors to one-stop tech companies like Google, Amazon, and Alibaba. At first, this approach was perceived ambiguously by participants in the banking sector. But now it is becoming quite obvious that the chosen strategy is valid and far-sighted. For example, Russian Sberbank ecosystem includes more than 20 companies which are not directly related to the traditional banking business.

Covid has definitely been a game changer in mobility. First it brought on a disaster when people stopped moving, and while the hard times are dragging on, it is slowly also triggering changes in thinking, many of which are welcome. One of them is a strong trend towards partnering. The idea of organizing relationships among actors in a field through partnering instead of competition or subcontracting is of course nothing new. Airlines have formed and run successful partnerships for decades. But in ground transportation competition, subcontracting and monopolies have been the standard.

There’s no denying it. It’s been demanding. When you are in the mobility business and people stop moving, you are in dire straits. We are engineers and therefore reorganizing our internal workflow was quick. Making cash flow estimates that make sense, securing financing to bridge the crisis and rethinking our sales strategy to meet the new challenges of our customers has taken a while. But rough can be exhilarating too.