AFRICA: inDriver From Russia Is Uber’s Latest Competitor In Africa

Global ride-hailing giant Uber has gone from having no competitors in Africa to having more than 50.

While it mainly contends with Taxify, the Estonian ride-hailing service, which is now in more African cities, Uber also faces competition from homegrown options like the Safaricom-backed Little Cabs in Kenya and regional players like Careem across North Africa.

In fact, it tried to merge with Careem this year, but Egyptian regulators warned against the deal.

The latest market entrant is inDriver, a Russian ride-hailing company, which has launched in Arusha, Tanzania, its first market on the continent.

The five-year old company operates in nine other countries across South and Central America as well as Europe. Long-term, inDriver hopes to differentiate its service by allowing drivers and riders haggle over final fare prices while it sets base fare price.

inDriver is also hoping to rapidly grow its driver pool by charging no commissions on driver earnings for six months after which it will begin charging 5% to 8% in commissions—much lower than either Uber or Taxify.

Drivers will also be able to view both pick-up and destination points before accepting rides.

inDriver’s play for drivers is not entirely new as incentivizing drivers has already proven to be a major part of the scrap for ride-hailing market share in Africa.

But what it offers in driver incentives, inDriver will likely lack in financial might compared to the biggest players on the continent. It raised $10 million in its Series B funding round earlier this year. Uber and Taxify are both billion-dollar unicorns.

Neither is showing any signs of slowing down on growing its Africa operations either. Taxify is eyeing ten-fold growth in the next two years and already operates in more African cities than Uber.

For its part, Uber is looking to add Rwanda, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Mauritius among potential targets to the eight African countries in which it already operates.

Uber has also shown a deeper interest in fitting into local transport ecosystems and has launched lower cost ride-hailing options with rickshaws in Kenya and motorcycles in Uganda.

It’s now looking to roll out a new service in Nairobi to allow users book spots on commercial mini-buses—locally known as matatus—which remain the most common form of transport in the city.


Tourism Observer

TANZANIA: inDriver Introduced In Tanzania

International online ride-hailing service inDriver now available in Arusha.

Arusha becomes the first city in Africa, where residents can set the cost of their trips

inDriver, an international online ride-hailing service, headquartered in New York, today becomes available to the inhabitants of Arusha. inDriver users can independently set the price for the trip, while drivers can choose the most profitable and convenient orders.

The only way to use taxi now in Arusha is to discuss the cost of the ride with driver directly. You cannot be sure if there will be drivers in place you want to leave, or if there will be enough passengers for good income today.

inDriver is a simple-to-use app that gives you possibility to make the rides that you want to make. For taxists inDriver is the easiest way to get more passengers just with their smartphones. And passengers use inDriver to have fare prices for their rides.

Arusha is the first city in Tanzania and in the whole continent, where international service inDriver was launched. The service has already connected more than 300 cars in Arusha, and dozens of new drivers are being registered daily.

At the initial stage after the start, inDriver will not charge drivers any commission.

inDriver has the option to make the rides safer. Passengers can share their rides with relatives or friends in messenger or social media just with one button.

This button was designed to make passengers sure that their near and dear people will not worry. The passengers can use "Share" button whenever they want during the trip.

Travelling with inDriver can be done throughout Arusha's city borders. Currently, one can pay for the ride only in cash, which allows to further reduce the cost of the trip, as when paying by card, the bank charges an additional commission.

All last week inDriver has been working in Arusha in test mode to collect first feedback. This week showed that prices became more attractive for passengers.

For example, for a ride from Clock tower to Philips with inDriver, users paid just 3000 shilingi, from Mianzini to Mount Meru Hospital 6000 shilingi.

Arusha is one of the most dynamic and large cities in the country with residents being in need to have good ride-hailing app. Until today, passengers could not order taxi ride from home and had to go to taxi station even in rain.

Taxi drivers had to sit many hours every day without orders. inDriver came to change this situation. We want customers and drivers have the most comfortable app for rides.

Already today, residents of Arusha, using inDriver, will be able to make the rides that they need at the time they need and from places they want.

Soon people in other big cities of Tanzania will be able to use it as well, said Yegor Fedorov, Business Development Director, inDriver.

You can download inDriver for free from the Google Play Store and AppStore.

Contacts for media: info@361africa.com

During the New Year holidays of 2012, the temperature dropped below -45C in the city of Yakutsk, Siberia, in Eastern Russia.

As a result, local taxi drivers simultaneously doubled the cost of rides — leaving riders out in the cold.

In response, the inhabitants of Yakutsk created an "Independent Drivers" group on Russia's social network, where people posted ride requests, listed the price they were willing to pay, and drivers accepted their orders.

In just six months, more than 60,000 people had joined the group. Not long after, the mobile app inDriver was created to replace the group, allowing passengers to independently set the most optimal terms for their rides.

Today, the service is used by 12 million users in 148 cities in 10 countries.


Tourism Observer