SINGAPORE - Despite rising competition from third party transport apps, taxi giant ComfortDelGro has clocked 30 million bookings for its cabs this year.

The 30 millionth booking was posted on Tuesday (Nov 17).

But with just a little over a month to the end of the year, it is unlikely ComfortDelGro will match its record 35.6 million bookings clocked last year (14).

Nevertheless, the company is waiving the booking fees for the first 15,000 customers who book a standard taxi using the promo code "30MIL" via the ComfortDelGro taxi booking app from Thursday (Nov19) to Nov 25.

The waiver applies only to current bookings. Passengers can redeem the "30MIL" promo code booking fee waiver for up to three times using the same mobile number.

ComfortDelGro said yesterday that it will also waive the booking levy for its taxi-drivers for seven days starting from Nov 24.

Cabby Lee Teng Nguan, 48, who has most number of booking jobs for three years in a row, said: "The levy-free week will translate into savings for me and that's a good incentive to try and get even more booking jobs during the period."

In the first 10 months of this year, Mr Lee clocked over 6,700 booking jobs - eight times more than the average driver.

ComfortDelGro said half of its taxi bookings are now done through its phone app.

"To-date, the ComfortDelGro taxi booking app has registered a total of 3 million downloads since it was introduced in 2010," a company spokesman said.

Overall, commuters are taking cabs more often. Last year (14), average daily taxi ridership rose to a record 1.02 million.