Safaricom’s Little is set to enter into the most populous country in Africa, Nigeria. Kamal Budhabatti, the CEO of the taxi hailing service, said this on Wednesday and even went on to affirm that his team was already in Nigeria for the launch on the 8th of October. He is fulfilling his promise made last year, at a Fireside Chat at CIO 100. However he had said that the launch in Nigeria would be in the first quarter of 2017.
Budbhatti said that the firm is also aiming to expand locally to Eldoret and Nakuru in Kenya. The service is currently available in Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu.
According to a Business daily report, Budbhatti said, “Locally, we are the first to venture into Kisumu city and we will be rolling out the service to other towns that our surveys suggest need the e-hailing service.”
Launching in Nigeria, this means the taxi-hailing service is ready to take on Uber and Taxify already present in the country.
Mr Budbhatti claims that the company has so far registered about 2,000 drivers to its platform and makes 10,000 trips daily.
Mr Budhabhatti said recent features added in the app, which include a panic button to boost security of riders and drivers and a facial recognition system, will also be introduced in the Nigerian market. The system improves security of its riders and cuts down cases of drivers sharing accounts or using unknown accounts.
The firm conducts checks using the security feature every time a driver logs in to verify their identity.
