On demand taxi service Didi plans to dominate the African taxi market. The company is using the same play boy that was used by Uber. Chinese ride-hailing firm expand to the Nigerian market, starting with Lagos as their first destination.
Evidence shows it is preparing to enter Nigeria, having begun operations in South Africa in March and Egypt just last month when the company posted a job opening for a driver center manager in Lagos – the same role it first advertised for when entering South Africa and Egypt, reports TechCrunch.
Didi is one of the biggest ride-hailing services in the world. However, unlike global competitors Uber and Bolt, which years ago saw Africa as a key market in their quest for global dominance, the Chinese firm held off the continent until now.
According to TechCrunch, In addition to launching other mobility platforms, Didi now owns minority stakes in other global platforms — the United States’ Lyft and Uber, Indonesia’s Grab, Egypt’s Careem and India’s Ola. It also fully acquired Brazil’s 99.
As Didi starts its incursion into Africa, Russia’s inDriver is firming up its presence across the same markets, where it recently started taking commissions from drivers.
Unlike other taxi-hailing apps that have a unilateral billing structure, inDriver allows riders to negotiate trip charges with drivers, making it popular among taxi users.
Founded in 2012, Didi has around 600 million users across 17 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Russia. The company also has over 15 million annual active drivers.
Leave a Reply