inDrive goes data free to stand out in SA market

Ride-sharing platform inDrive is betting on a partnership with MTN that takes away the cost of mobile data for using its platform as a way to stand out in a market dominated by Uber and Bolt.

inDrive is a US-based service with more than 150-million downloads operating in 47 countries. The company operates in nine SA cities — Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Gqeberha, East London, Pietermaritzburg, Rustenburg and Polokwane — and has about 5,000 drivers in the country.

The company says it is the first ride-sharing app in SA that has made the use of its platform data free for its users. In essence, the company has taken on the data cost for both drivers and passengers, effectively zero rating it. 

“We partnered with MTN. However, it extends to the other service providers like Vodacom, Telkom and Cell C,” Vincent Lilane, business development representative at inDrive, told Business Day. 

“We understand that in SA data is quite expensive. So this helps drivers and passengers to use the app, even if they don’t have data. It has [already] resulted in some growth in our app usage.”

This is one of the initiatives made by smaller players in the sector to compete with SA’s two largest operators.

US-based Uber and Estonia’s Bolt are both international and have deep pockets. In August 2021, Bolt was valued at about $4.75bn (R81bn) after its most recent funding round, while publicly traded Uber is worth $58.2bn.

However, Didi, worth $7bn, failed to make inroads locally. The company shut its SA operations in April last year after just a year in the market. While China’s largest e-hailing service did not disclose its reasons for leaving SA, it makes sense that the venture had not yielded enough to stay, especially as the company had seen SA as its launch pad for operations across the continent. 

“The industry is quite tough to be honest. It’s one of those markets where you have to assess the demands and the needs. Things fluctuate and there’s seasonality. But this is a necessary service in SA,” said Lilane. 

“Being able to stay in this market for this long is really an achievement for us. We’ve put together a strong team and research to be on par with our peers.”

In SA, where unemployment tops 33% of the employable population and close to 2-million jobs have been shed in the past two years, freelance or “gig economy” work, such as ride hailing and food delivery, has become a lifeline for many.

gavazam@businesslive.co.za