Uber links with Kia Motors in Nigeria

UBER Technologies is negotiating cheaper deals for new vehicles with Kia Motors to boost its number of drivers fivefold in the Nigerian city of Lagos, Africa’s biggest, to 3 000 by the end of next year.

The US car-booking company had signed agreements with the South Korean car maker and Lagos-based Access Bank to reduce the down payment required for new vehicles to 95 000 naira (R6 354) from almost 200 000 naira, with the balance payable over four years, Alon Lits, Uber’s general manager for sub-Saharan Africa, said in an interview in Lagos on August 28.

“Since we launched in Lagos just over a year ago, more than 600 job opportunities have been created using the application,” Lits said. “That’s really just the beginning. We feel that the number can be well over 3 000 by the end of 2016.”

Uber, which connects drivers with passengers via its smartphone application in more than 300 cities, was seeking partnerships that would reduce costs for new drivers as the San Francisco-based company expanded in Africa, Lits said.

Founded in 2009, Uber does not own vehicles or employ drivers, and existing taxi companies in cities including Paris, Moscow and Johannesburg have protested at what they consider to be unfair competition.

Challenges facing Uber in Lagos, the first sub-Saharan African city to have the service outside South Africa, included congested traffic and poor mapping quality, according to Lits.

Another was that a relatively small proportion of Nigerians knew how to operate a smartphone well enough to manage the trips, Ebi Atawodi, the general manager for Uber Lagos, said in the same interview.

While Nigeria had 148.5 million active cellphone subscriptions as of July, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission, fewer than 10 percent were for smartphones, or internet-enabled devices. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country with more than 170 million people, of which about 21 million live in Lagos.

To address the issue of mapping, Uber was working with other technology companies on ways to direct drivers without access to conventional directions, Lits said.

Uber’s growth in Lagos could match the speed of take-up in South Africa, according to Lits.

The company’s drivers in Africa’s most industrialised economy had taken passengers on more than 2 million journeys this year, compared with about 1 million in 2014, the company said in July.

Besides Johannesburg, the company also operates in Durban and Cape Town.

Lits sees the number of South African drivers growing to about 15 000 by the beginning of 2017 from 2 000 now. – Bloomberg busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za busrep.co.za