Nihon Kotsu as the "Prince of Taxis." The company was founded as a sole proprietorship in 1928 and reorganized as a stock company in December 1945. It began as a limousine operator and expanded to taxi service in 1940. NK operates the most popular taxi hailing mobile application in Japan, Japan Taxi. Toyota invested 500 million yen in the app in 2017, followed by a second 7.5 billion investment in 2018. Tokyo Musen, a major rival of Nihon Kotsu in the Tokyo area, joined the app later that year in an effort to counterbalance foreign rivals such as Uber and Didi Chuxing.
Grab (company) app assigns taxis to nearby commuters through a location-sharing system. Each time the company enters a new market, they buy smartphones for drivers in countries that they expand to, allowing those drivers to pay daily instalments for the phone. The company makes money by taking a cut of the booking fees. Although some taxi companies have tried to stop their own drivers from using the app, Grab reached out directly to taxi drivers by signing them up at airports, hawker centres, taxi queues, and depots. The company also educates taxi drivers on using the smartphone and their mobile app. In