Competition in Sydney's ride-sharing and taxi market will step up a gear in the lead-up to the Christmas holiday period with Taxify launching services here on Tuesday, offering customers a 50 per cent discount on competitors' base fares for a month.

The fast-growing Estonian company, which operates in 20 countries and counts Chinese ride-sharing giant Didi Chuxing among its financial backers, is also trying to attract customers by taking a different approach to so-called surge pricing.

While the extent of surge pricing over New Year's Eve would be "dependent on the night", Taxify's Australia country manager, Samuel Raciti, said it was unlikely it would be more than 1.5 times the cost of the base fare at other times of the year.

"We want to make sure we incentivise without decreasing demand," he said.