Wheel time: Wildberries may launch its own taxi in 2026
Wildberries may launch a taxi service in Russia in 2026, Izvestia has learned. The company has already developed an application for domestic users, and by the end of this year it is hiring drivers as part of a partner courier program. The marketplace's interest in this area may also be spurred by the fact that Yandex currently has a monopoly in the taxi industry, experts say. At the same time, by the end of 2024, the volume of this market was 3.35 billion rubles. Whether the new service will be able to break the monopoly and how it will affect consumers is in the Izvestia article.
What new service can Wildberries launch?
The united company Wildberries & Russ (RVB) may launch its own taxi service in Russia in 2026, four sources familiar with its plans told Izvestia. The organization has already completed the development of a separate application for these purposes, one of these sources knows. Until the end of this year, she is hiring drivers as part of a partner courier program, he claims.
A database of existing platforms for the provision of such services can be used to launch its own taxi, says another Izvestia source familiar with the organization's plans. The company itself was looking to purchase the Wheely personal driver service, and also showed interest in buying Citymobil, two other Izvestia interlocutors noted. But an editorial source close to the organization indicates that WB does not have an "obvious player" to buy its own resource in the Russian Federation, so the company will launch it independently. The exact dates are not specified by the interlocutors.
"There is no need to talk about launching a taxi service in Russia yet, the company is focused on testing the project in other countries — Belarus and Uzbekistan," the Wildberries& Russ press service told Izvestia.
During 2025, the organization strengthened its presence in the taxi services market. As previously reported, in July, WB launched beta testing of its own taxi in Belarus. In August, the company's founder, Tatiana Kim, announced that the new resource would be headed by Anatoly Smorgonsky, the former head of the Russian division of the Gett aggregator. In November, the technical launch of a taxi ordering service in Uzbekistan was announced. At the start, WB Taxi will operate in a "closed club" format, access will first be granted to employees and partners of the marketplace, the press service reported.
The combined RVB company was established in 2024 as a joint venture between Wildberries (65%) and Russ Group (35%), combining marketplace, advertising technologies and logistics into a single digital ecosystem. The organization manages sales, logistics, and advertising services, as well as develops factoring and IT platforms for sellers. In 2024, the turnover of the combined structure in the e-commerce segment exceeded 4 trillion rubles, which is more than 1.5 times higher than the results a year earlier. Net profit for the same period increased 3.5 times, to 104 billion rubles, RVB reported in March.
How WB can break the monopoly of Yandex
Wildberries develops its business using an ecosystem approach, seeking to compete with companies such as Yandex, as well as banks that have their own ecosystems, such as Sberbank, a source close to the marketplace told Izvestia.
The taxi market in the country is monopolized, said Mikhail Burmistrov, CEO of Infoline Analytics. This is causing "serious concern," says a senior official familiar with the situation. There should be at least two major players in the country for the sake of "healthy competition and pricing" for these services, he noted.
In Moscow, 96% of taxi orders are made through the Yandex Go mobile application, RBC reported in the fall of 2024, according to the Metropolitan Department of Transport. Another 3% of orders came from Drivee, less than 1% from Citymobil and 0.14% from Maxim. In 2020, Yandex's share among aggregators was 70.8% of the market, Citymobila - 20.2%, Gett — 6%, Vezet — 0.4%, inDriver — 0.1%. The remaining 2.5% of orders accounted for other services, according to data from Deptrans Moscow.
In November 2023, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) convicted Yandex Taxi of occupying a dominant position in the country. In February 2024, the FAS made "serious comments" to the service, which were related to overstating the cost of trips, as well as blocking drivers and passengers, Peter Ivanov, deputy head of the service, said in an interview with Izvestia.
A Yandex representative declined to comment.
What are the prospects for the taxi market
The launch of the Wildberries service could have a significant impact on the taxi transportation market, Irina Zaripova, chairman of the Public Council for Taxi Development, told Izvestia. According to her, the company already has an extensive logistics network, extensive experience in interacting with drivers and couriers, as well as significant IT potential for developing a modern digital product. The emergence of a new player will benefit both drivers and passengers, as well as have a positive impact on the level of competition, Mikhail Burmistrov noted. It will have a positive impact on the quality of services and the technological development of the industry in the future, Irina Zaripova added.
At the same time, the taxi market in the country is currently operating in a crisis, she said. By the end of 2024, the number of taxi rides in Russia in money amounted to 3.35 billion rubles, which is 2% more than in 2023, the analytical company Businessstat estimated. A year earlier, the growth rate of this market was 7.6%. The reason for the slowdown in the industry's growth was a decrease in the availability of services, according to the company's report.
The average taxi fare per 1 km of travel in January–October 2025 was 47 rubles, which is 10% more than in the same period a year earlier, according to Rosstat data. In Moscow, this figure increased by 20% over the same period, to 69 rubles. Since 2022, the average taxi fare in the capital has increased 2.2 times based on 1 km of travel, according to statistics. Rosstat did not disclose data on the country for 2022.
Carriers are facing legislative pressure, and there is a shortage of personnel in the market itself, Irina Zaripova noted. In March 2026, the requirement for localization of taxi cars will come into force, which can seriously affect the further development of the Russian taxi market, she noted.
In addition, the industry is experiencing economic difficulties due to the high costs of updating and maintaining the fleet, increasing the cost of fuel and maintenance, the expert listed. The emergence of a new major participant may change the balance of power in the market, but it will not solve systemic problems that require attention from the government and business, the expert noted. When launching its service, Wildberries runs the risk of encountering all these difficulties, Irina Zaripova summarized.
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