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Fight For Africa’s Ride-Hailing App Market Moves To Last-Mile Territory: Bicycles, Scooters

Fight For Africa’s Ride-Hailing App Market Moves To Last-Mile Territory: Bicycles, Scooters

After the initial resistance to ride-hailing app use in African cities, global players like Uber and Taxify and local startups are moving the battle to motorbikes, rickshaws and soon bicycles and scooter-sharing.

With the regular car-ride market facing stiff competition across African cities, San-Francisco- based Uber and Estionia’s Taxify see the best opportunity for growth in locally popular forms of motorized and non-motorized transport.

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“We really see ourselves more and more as a transport platform. So, it is no longer just about vehicles,” said Cezanne Maherali, head of policy for Uber East Africa, last week in Nairobi at a Women in Transport Conference.

Ride-hailing apps have disrupted the chaotic taxicab business in cities such as Lagos, Cairo, Accra, Nairobi and Kampala. Their entry attracted competition from local players, some supported by local mobile service providers.

Africa hosts about 60 ride-sharing services across 21 countries, according to Africa Renewal a publication of the United Nations Department of Public Information.

The growth of smartphone, internet and mobile money use on the continent has helped to make it easy for such apps to flourish in markets where credit cards use is low.

Both Uber and Taxify have launched services covering tuk-tuk rides — three-wheeled motorcycles popular with people at Kenya’s port city of Mombasa and other cities across the continent.

There are about 10,000 tuk-tuks operating in Mombasa offering rides to about 30,000 people, according to Taxify East Africa estimates.

“Our focus is primarily to make it easier for people to move around,” said Chisom Anoke, Taxify head of Kenya operations, at the launch of the service in March. “We have decided to apply technology to make the tuk-tuk industry more efficient.”

Taxify, which has close to half of its operation in sub-Sahara Africa with hundreds of thousands of drivers ferrying its 5 million active users on the continent, this year expanded to more African cities than its main rival, Uber.

Ride-Hailing App
Image:SafeBoda

Boda-Boda

Motorbikes or boda-boda have also become a way for transport apps to expand.

Last week Uber launched motorcycle service uberBoda in Nairobi following in the footsteps of Taxify, which rolled out a similar product in Uganda and Kenya earlier this year, to compete with other apps like SafeBoda and MondoBoda.

Motorbike riders, commonly known as boda-boda in East Africa, are usually a quick way for many commuters to beat menacingly annoying traffic jams in growing cities across the continent.

uberBoda already operated in Uganda’s capital Kampala, where boda-boda are the cheapest and most popular mode of transport.

“While Uber has grown into a global brand, we understand the importance of building technology to meet the needs of the local market,” said Pierre-Dimitri Gore-Coty, Uber’s vice president for Europe Middle East and Africa, in a statement.

“We will continue to invest our technology in products like uberBODA that seek to support local businesses while providing another safe, reliable and convenient choice for passengers,” he added.

Bikes and scooters

With all bases covered on motorized transport, ride-hailing apps are now looking at the non-motorized ones like bike and scooter sharing.

Uber’s Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi told the Financial Times in August the company was looking to switch its focus from taxis to electric bikes and scooters to grow its global business.

The company has already added e-bikes to its app in some U.S. cities, buying bike-sharing firm Jump earlier this year and investing in electric scooter firm Lime.

Africa is also on the map for these non-motorized transport services, according to Maherali, Uber’s head of policy in East Africa. She said the company was looking to bring these services to the continent “very soon”.

“Non-motorised transport is an important part of our sustainability ecosystem,” she said. “We’ve got bikes and scooters that we’ve launched across the world and we really hope that we can bring them to Africa very soon.”

While bike-sharing has expanded across the developed world, it has struggled to take off in Africa where road networks tend to favor motorists. Lack of bicycle lanes makes it dangerous for cyclists who fight for space with motorbikes, cars and trucks.

Uber said earlier in November it was considering rolling out a new service in Kenya to help users book seats on minibuses – popularly known as Matatu – that ply the streets of the congested capital, if tests on the product in Egypt and Mexico prove successful.

“We are really looking proactively how we can work with public transit so that your ride is seamless within the last mile,” Maherali said.

“You can take Uber to the bus and take an Uber when you get off the bus to get you home. This is what our vision for the future is all about.”