Saphe – Intelligent Traffic Systems for Cars
The Danish technology company Saphe shows that offering subscription services with smart data can help expand a business and beat the competition.
Saphe – Intelligent Traffic Systems for Cars
The Danish technology company Saphe shows that offering subscription services with smart data can help expand a business and beat the competition.
Saphe – New EU Requirement Increases Competition
EU regulations demand that all new cars produced after July 2024 must be equipped with an Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) safety system, which warns drivers whether the speed limit has been exceeded on a given stretch. This also means that the competition for this technology will increase. According to Saphe CEO Freddy Sørensen, though, customers should keep an eye on the quality.
Facts about speeding offenses in Europe
- Approximately 30 per cent of all fatal accidents are caused by excessive or inappropriate speed.
- 67 per cent of Europeans admit to speeding on the roads in the previous 30 days.
- A pedestrian hit by a car traveling at 65 km/h is four times more likely to be killed than if they were hit by a car traveling at 50 km/h.
- If the average speed is reduced by 1 km/h on all roads throughout the EU, it will be possible to save more than 2000 lives a year.
(Source: European Commission’s road safety report on speed limits, 2021)
“The issue with global technologies is that sign recognition is done via cameras in the newer cars, and this entails a number of challenges, for example if there is insufficient signage on the route, poor visibility, covered signs, errors in the signage, etc. In fact, according to a study by the European car manufacturers’ association ACEA, camera recognition is only 50 % reliable. Our technology is different because data about the speed limits is already mapped and not dependent on the car’s camera recognition.”
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More InformationTraffic safety as a digital service
Saphe is a Danish technology company that develops intelligent traffic systems that reduce the number of traffic-related accidents. Saphe was founded in 2015 and has 40+ employees in Aalborg as of today.
Since the founding of the company, Saphe has sold nearly 2 millio traffic alarms. In October 2021, Saphe converted the business model to a subscription business in collaboration with the payment and subscription company Billwerk+.
Unlike the original product, the subscription product is based on an advanced technology that integrates the speed limits and the traffic alert with the cars’ own interface.
In December 2023, Saphe launched a new update of their subscription product. Danish motorists can now report speed limits and more with two taps in the app, so the app is always updated to the most recent speed limits. Additionally, Saphe has integrated data from HERE to cover 100 % of all Danish roads.
Unlike many of the speed limit solutions found in newer cars today, where traffic alerts are based on live video recordings of road signs with the car’s own camera, Saphe’s traffic alert is based on data about speed limits that have already been mapped and are constantly updated, which makes Saphe’s solution far more reliable.
Today, Saphe has over 1.4 million subscribers and an average subscription growth of 10,000 subscriptions net per month. In fact, on February 14th – Valentine’s Day – it celebrated its 250.000th subscriber for Saphe Premium.
Paving the Way with Subscription Services
Saphe collaborated with the payment and subscription management company Billwerk+, which had the technology and expertise in subscription business that Saphe’s restructuring required.
Back in 2020, no employees or retailers believed in the subscription model. Retailers lacked experience in selling subscription products, and consumers had not shown interest in it either.
Despite all this, in the spring of 2020, Saphe chose to develop an advanced subscription-based traffic alert, which appears on the car’s built-in screen and warns the driver when approaching a new speed limit or driving too fast. Every year the speed limit is changed by approximately 10 % of all roads according to location data and technology company HERE, so a real-time information system can increase driving safety.
In Aalborg, for example, the speed limit changes in many places range from 60 km/h to 50 km/h, so it doesn’t take much to drive 30 % faster than the speed limit. In Denmark, we also generally have few road signs, whereas EU studies show that displaying speed limits makes a difference.
What Makes Saphe a Great Business Solution?
In order to compete with the global players, Saphe has invested in the acquisition of data from the competitor HERE, which is globally the leading provider of location data and mapping for car manufacturers and owned by e.g. Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Mitsubishi.
With the new data, Saphe will be able from covering 30 % of speed limit data on Danish roads to 100 % once the new integration is launched.
“HERE’s technology is the best alternative available to Saphe with a reliability of 80-95 %. It works well on motorways. However, the smaller the roads, the less reliable their data gets and it might take several years before they get enough information about Danish roads to update their maps. Saphe’s data is of much better quality, so in combining our and HERE’s data, we can become the strongest and most reliable player on the Danish market.”
Saphe Expands to Europe
Saphe’s ambitions also extend beyond Denmark’s borders. Currently, they are in the process of expanding abroad, including England and Germany. To make sure, the data is also as accurate as possible in Germany, where Saphe is offering their subscription services since May 2023, the company has entered into a data agreement with one of the largest German traffic apps, Blitzer.
We have always known that at some point we would have to expand into new markets, and in Germany alone there are approx. 50 million cars, so it’s a huge market for us. But there are also challenges associated with expanding, which is why the choice of partner has been crucial. From the start, we have chosen to build our solution with the subscription company Billwerk+ because it has roots in Denmark and Germany but also provides global expertise and payment solutions that can be scaled across national borders.
The biggest challenge of scaling a subscription business to other countries is the payment management. For example, many consumers in Germany do not have a payment card, but use SEPA or PayPal. We have to adapt to that. Billwerk+ already supports SEPA for recurring payments and will soon add PayPal to their recurring payment methods, which will help us significantly to scale our growth on the German market.
In England, the potential is also great with approx. 39 million cars and payment preferences that are a bit easier to adapt to because more English people pay by card. We already partner with large chain stores such as Halfords, but awareness is still very low, so we have both a great challenge and opportunity ahead of us. However, we believe that we have a strong position and can succeed because we go to the market with product of higher quality than many of the solutions available today.
4000+ customers are growing with Billwerk+
4000+ customers are growing with Billwerk+
