I was taking a cab this morning in Singapore, and the driver was talking about the myriad of payment options that he now accepts.
“Many people nowadays use PayLah!,” he said. “Of course, they get discounts.”
“How about Dash?” I asked, pointing to promotion banner at the back of the front seat, which advertised discounts for using SingTel Dash.
“Yes, there is,” the driver replied. “I encounter one person using it every few months.”
A couple of weeks ago, I got the same answer from a 7-Eleven clerk, when I saw the Dash promotion standee in her store.
Well, the days you only discover that you need a Standard Chartered card after almost completing the Dash registration progress are long gone. From the two conversations above, it seems actual usage of Dash in Singapore remains limited, while PayLah!, which went quiet for a while, is now seemingly on the rise.
It is quite hard not to notice the rating differences between the two on App Store:
Given that iOS has more than 40% market share and occupies the majority of the premium market in Singapore, this is quite significant.
On Google Play, the difference is smaller, though still obvious:
On Google Play, PayLah! has been downloaded 500,000+ times while Dash has a relatively modest 100,000+.
It seems that DBS’s digital transformation, championed by CEO Piyush Gupta, is finally paying off, or at least starting to.
Anyone knows any champions of digital at SingTel?
Actually the telecom giant has been very diligent in creating apps:
The opportunity it is facing is immense. However, to capture the market, it needs much more than ideas, marketing budget and partnerships.
Now anyone remembers HungryGoWhere?
