In Uganda alone, you can’t spend 5 minutes in the city center without a Boda hailing driver in your sight. Even though SafeBoda has garnered many bulls in the industry making it the most popular service in Kampala, other services like UberBoda and Taxify Boda are all focused on lifting their flags higher this year after successful rollouts in 2018.
According to our 2018 Boda hailing stats, the industry received maximum exposure than it ever had in the previous years. As we write this, Taxify has over 3,000 Boda drivers in its ranks while Uber is not far from that number while SafeBoda stands tall with over 8,000 drivers. This has made the orange service the leading Boda hailing service within the city.
As a matter of fact, the taxi-hailing sector kickstarted the modern transportation show in Uganda after Uber rolling the dice in 2016, but it seems to have a lost grip after the two wheelers joined the fold that they have now come to dominate. By the time December came to a lapse, new startups like Pikime and Dial Jack had already joined the league whereas Little Cab also embraced the all wheel drive sector.
What we expect in 2019
Before the White metal Rat year (Chinese proverb), the Boda hailing industry will be greater than what we anticipated it to be like 3 years back, we expect to see new companies embracing the sector, the same way Taxify and Uber did last year. Imagine if Little Cab embraced the motorbike industry as well or the ever-rumored Lyft strategizing a position in Kampala.
Given the 2018 cross driver enrollment scheme by the SafeBoda, we expect to see the 10,000 driver mark achieved with Taxify and Uber doubling their 2018 number as well. Also, the political strings are slowly tightening to support only registered motorbike drivers in Kampala so this may see the Boda hailing sphere booming up to meet the high user demands. Nonetheless, we shall be on the night’s watch to see which company will take the 2019 crown after SafeBoda dominating the common year.
