Uber is passionate about making your city better. They partner with thousands of locals to keep Kampala moving. As a result, they energise the local economy, make streets safer from drunk driving, foster a less congested environment and now, might soon bring food right to your door steps with UberEats.
The US-based company has been expanding its service catalogue in Uganda especially in the central regions of Kampala and Entebbe. The ride hailing service in March, 2018 launched UberBODA. This was to tap the segment of the population who prefer travelling on two-wheelers to reach their destinations quickly especially during rush hours.
A year ago, Uber partnered with Choma Zone Bar and Grill, a local restaurant to launch the UberChoma promo. This gave Ugandans the first glimpse of Uber actually delivering food (read Nyama Choma) to their door steps. We speculated that this promo would see Uber launch a new food based on-demand service in Kampala.
UberChoma was reminiscent of UberEats, just that it was only limited to Nyama Choma. Before they could get to Uganda, Uber has first conducted test phases in Nairobi, Kenya.
UberEats in Nairobi
UberEats which branched off from the main Uber app has been operational in Egypt and South Africa, and has now launched in Kenya. Kenya is only the third country in Africa to have UberEats, and Nairobi will be the test market for East Africa.
“As a customer, you will have the UberEats app where you can make your food choices and choose where to have it delivered within a few presses of a few buttons,” said Uber Eats Kenya General Manager Amal Devani on Tuesday.
The big plan for UberEats
To make this happen, Uber needs many mobile drivers (UberBoda) who are well conversant with the functionality of the app. How to achieve that? Uber is willing to pay for drivers permits for all those that join the UberBoda service. Currently, less than 4% of Kampala drivers have valid permits. Also, Uber is paying invite bonuses of up to UGX 70,000 for new joiners and UGX 50,000 for the inviters. This is all in the bid to increase the number of drivers.
UberEats explained
UberEats follows a model of partnering with local restaurants within a given radius, with Uber drivers delivering customers food oders. It offers a broader menu to customers compared to the Nyama Choma limited UberChoma. Jumia food has seen success in the food delivery realm within Kampala by using motorcycles to get around the congested city traffic. With Uber already having two-wheelers on its resume, the launch in Kampala may be sooner than expected. Will UberEats be better than Jumia Food or Simba Food? This shall be a debatable question until the launch of the service in Uganda.
