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ndonesia’s largest taxi operator Blue Bird Group will purchase 10,000 new taxis to serve its customers across the country next year. Of the figure, about 6,000 units would be based in Greater Jakarta (Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, Bekasi), an executive said.

The additional fleet, all comprising Toyota Limo units, aims to support the company’s regular taxi service to better cope with increasing demands, according to Blue Bird vice president for business development Noni Purnomo.

“The number of people using our service continues to grow. There are about 2,000 orders that we cannot accept everyday because we lack the capacity,” she said.

At the moment, Blue Bird operates around 17,000 regular taxis under the Blue Bird and Pusaka brands in 10 areas — Bandung, West Java; Denpasar, Bali; Greater Jakarta; Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara; Manado, North Sulawesi; Medan, North Sumatra; Palembang, South Sumatra; Pekanbaru, Riau; Semarang, Central Java; and Surabaya, East Java.

The new purchases will cost up to Rp 1.7 trillion (US$176.26 million) as one unit requires about Rp 170 million, with all accessories included, according to Noni. The company would open several new taxi depots in Greater Jakarta’s suburbs as well in an effort to reach more potential customers in residential areas, she said.

Besides expanding its regular taxi fleet, Blue Bird will also purchase 320 Mercedes E-Class and Mercedes C-Class units to extend and rejuvenate its executive Silver Bird service in Jakarta next year. As of now, it runs 1,000 Silver Bird units in Jakarta and Surabaya only. Since they are designed to cater to upscale customers, the Silver Bird taxis are mostly stationed at luxury hotels.

So far, the regular taxi service has been the major contributor to the company’s revenues, accounting for more than 70 percent. Blue Bird’s other businesses, which includes premium taxis, buses and logistics services make up the remaining 30 percent.

With the development of the country’s second-tier cities, the company also aims at expanding its logistics services network, according to Noni. Blue Bird is currently in talks with several firms to provide services from the latter’s distribution centers to stores.

In logistics, Blue Bird operates container trucks and trailers, and partners with other companies in running warehouses and storage points. In total, Blue Bird’s fleet reaches around 26,000 units.  

Commenting on the company’s long-awaited plan to go public, Noni said Blue Bird was still assessing the current taxi market. “We are conducting a beauty contest to appoint the underwriter for our IPO [initial public offering]. We will release between 20 percent and 40 percent of our enlarged shares to the public,” she said.

As previously reported, the company plans to use funds generated from the IPO to expand its business. It will most likely make a decision regarding the IPO in the middle of 2013.

“We’ll proceed with the IPO if the assessment shows positive results. But if the results are negative, we will put the plan on hold. The IPO is not urgently needed because we can still get loans from financial institutions to fund our expansion,” she added.

Noni also stressed that the company would focus on the Indonesian market and would not go overseas at least until 2015 even though the company had received offers to conduct business in other countries, such as Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.