ORIGINAL TITLE : CoYatri.com
ORGANIZATION : CoYatri.com Private Limited
COUNTRY : India
CONTACT : pradeep@coyatri.com
LANGUAGE : English
WEBSITE : www.coyatri.com/index.html
DOWNLOAD THE APP : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ntc.coyatri&hl=en

Car owners, travellers share expenses via mobile-based inter-city carpooling

Launched in September, 2014 CoYatri is a first of its kind inter-city organized ride sharing portal and app which addresses the problem of home town travel during weekends and festival season for working professionals and students. It connects lone travellers who need seats to car owners with empty seats looking to reduce their fuel and toll expenses. Users check if a car owner/traveller will be driving from one city to another and book/share a seat in advance.

Inter-city carpooling is the uniqueness of idea as there are many intra-city carpooling portals in India. The mobile-based service also handles security concerns by verifying each and every individual who are registering with CoYatri and enabling inter-person communication between users. Now CoYatri is introducing GPS tracking and implementing panic button in the mobile app to handle security concerns.

Some of the benefits are:

• Sharing saves expenses of car journey while driving on highways
• Saves time for the people who are travelling on highways
• Saves fuel for the nation and reduces carbon footage on environment
• Saves local travel expenses and travel fatigue
• No more waiting lists and paying high fares for reaching hometown during weekends and festival seasons.

Currently CoYatri is not charging a single rupee from both car owners as well as travellers. In the coming days CoYatri is going to charge a service charge on per seat booking. It also plans to implement a travel shopping cart for travellers.

Since the time of launching the website CoYatri has enlisted over 4500 registered users with more than 570 rides booked till date.

ORIGINAL TITLE : Chutti.pk
ORGANIZATION : Chutti.pk
COUNTRY : Pakistan
CONTACT : ahmad@irhal.com
LANGUAGE : English
WEBSITE : www.chutti.pk
DOWNLOAD THE APP : https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chutti-islamic-travel-city/id919435154?mt=8

Customised travel information for Muslim travellers from Pakistan

Chutti.pk was started as a website in 2009. In 2010 the company launched its Arabic language version irhal.com. In November 2014, it launched the mobile apps for both chutti.pk and irhal.com.

Irhal is an Arabic/English travel app for Muslim travellers worldwide. It has over 90 city guides with information on places to visit, shopping, hotels, etc. It also has GPS enabled locations of Halal restaurants and mosques. It includes prayer timings and a compass showing the direction of Makkah (Mecca). There is at present no Arabic travel app in the market. The Islamic travel sector is worth over $137 billion (2013 Thomson Reuters) and is growing rapidly. Irhal wants to become the must-have resource for all Muslim travellers. The app is being distributed free.

Monetisation is through advertising, affiliate sales of travel packages and hotel bookings. The initial markets are the Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman) where:

• Mobile penetration is over 70%
• There is no Arabic mobile content
• Outbound travel is worth over $40 billion annually.

Advertisers are willing to pay a premium to reach this audience. Irhal.com received 1 million unique users in 2014.

Chutti.pk is the Pakistan version of the same app. Since the Pakistani market for online advertising is still very low, the company is concentrating on the Middle East market now.

The app can be downloaded for free from the Google Play Store or the Apple iTunes store.

ORIGINAL TITLE : Place SMS
ORGANIZATION : Hiwaas
COUNTRY : Pakistan
CONTACT : asad@hiwaas.com
LANGUAGE : English
WEBSITE : www.placesms.pk
DOWNLOAD THE APP : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pk.placesms

Automated location triggered SMS to inform user’s current location

Launched in January, 2015 Place SMS is a location triggered SMS app. The app auto sends an SMS to selected recipients when the user enters or leaves a location. No sign up is required.

How does Place SMS work?

• Just Place a message on a selected location on the map.
• Add recipients’ numbers and write messages. Choose “When I Enter” or “When I Leave”.
• Now turn the tracking On

The message will now be sent to the recipients when the user enters or leaves that location.

Key Features:

• No sign up is required
• Extremely easy interface
• No extra cost. Works with user’s existing SMS package.
• Send SMS message to any number of recipients.
• Send your location along with the SMS message
• Send message to any phone that supports SMS.
• Works wherever there is GPS. No internet required for message sending.
• Quick search for location in the loaded map.
• All the data is stored on the user’s phone, so no privacy issues.

Some of the uses of the are:

• Stuck in traffic? Friends are notified crossing various locations.
• Let your family know when you are heading home.
• Let your spouse know when you are near market
• Parents will get alerts when the school Bus is near their home or has reached school.
• When travelling to another city, someone waiting for you will know about your whereabouts.
• Car Pooling with Friends! Location messages for picking them is a breeze
• Keep a close eye on the kids while they are out of home

Place SMS is currently free for personal use. However, the company is charging businesses on a monthly basis. For schools, the company charges Rs 5 per month per student.