Hiring a car has always been a tedious process, but car-sharing service SOCAR is aiming to change that. According to the CEO for SOCAR Malaysia Leong Foong, soon you all you may need to do is to simply talk to the app on your phone.

"With the likes of Siri, Bixby and Alexa, we are also looking at how to tap into these virtual assistants, to leverage on that technology to make it easier for you to make a reservation," he explains.

As car-sharing gains traction in KL and more people become comfortable with the idea, it is inevitable that more companies will try to cash in. Yet, Foong says that rather than fear it, he welcomes competition.

He says that for SOCAR, its strategy from the beginning has never changed, which is to simply focus on the customer.

"When we grow our business, we can either focus on the competition and be worried about what they are doing, or really focus on how we continue impressing and keeping our customers pleased. The latter is going to be our approach in this market.

We want to be as customer obsessed as possible. The team is constantly looking at ways to make the user experience more magical," he says.

What he means by magical is making the booking and collecting process not only just intuitive, but seamless. He says that SOCAR is also investing in research to see how its users are also interacting with its services.

For example, Foong says that there have been an increase requests for "one-way zones", where users can pick a car up in one spot and drop it off in another. This came after it launched its one-way service to the airport, where users can pick up their car in town and then leave it at any of the valid parking lots.  

However, Leong admits that even with all the technical updates, Malaysia remains a highly price sensitive market.  

"So affordability is key, but what is more important to us is how efficiently it runs its operations," he says.

In this respect, he says SOCAR relies on the expertise of its parent in South Korea that runs a 1000-plus fleet in its home country. As such, he believes that SOCAR's cost structure is able to match that of any of its competitors.

SOCAR Malaysia is 60%-owned by SK Holdings, the vehicle of energy and telco conglomerate SK group. The remaining 40% is held by SOCAR Korea.

When the service launched in January, it did so with just under 300 cars. Within eight months it managed to double the size of its fleet, and it is now in over 300 locations from its original 100.

According to Foong, they have had more than 120,000 people signing up to become their members.

However, SOCAR remains a relative newbie in the market, having come in after the likes of Kwikcar, GoCar, and home-grown outfit Moovby.

According to a report by Global Market Insights, the car sharing market is set to exceed US$11 billion by 2024, and the global fleet size and number of members will grow around 20% CAGR.

However, Foong says that the ultimate aim is to make Malaysians "multiflexers", a term coined by SOCAR to describe an essentially multimodal lifestyle. Hence, why he views highly popular ride-sharing as a compliment, rather than a competitor.

Foong points out that he is a big supporter of ride-sharing, having been part of the team that brought in ride-sharing in its current form to Malaysia.

"Some days I want to take a Grab to work, sometimes I want to take a MRT to meetings, and sometimes after work I want to run errands, I want to pick people up, I still need a car," he says.

At the moment though, SOCAR is only available within the Klang Valley. However, Foong says that is set to change with plans in the pipeline to expand Johor Bahru and he adds that Singapore would also be an interesting market to tap.

When asked how SOCAR plans its expansion, Foong says its map is very much data driven, an unsurprising answer given that businesses these days are often powered by algorithms.

"We know where the users are signing up from. But beyond that, we also know their preferences, we know the type of cars they like and on which locations.

So based on the data that we collect, we decide on which geographic regions, which neighbourhoods we want to be in. It is all about density, we want to ensure that there is a sufficient level of density in where our zones are where you don't need to walk more than five to ten minutes to find your car," he says.

As for the fleet itself, Leong says that Socar will be adding more Mini Coopers, more of what he refers to as "fun" cars and more electric vehicles.

Ultimately, he says that SOCAR wants Malaysians to enjoy driving again without the pain of having to pay for it for the long term.

"We want to get people to truly enjoy car-sharing for what it offers, which means not being stuck to one car for the next nine years," he says.