NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, June 13, 2016

Kenya largest telecom, Safaricom, plans to launch a taxi hailing service, known as Littlecabs, that will compete with Uber in the local market.

Safaricom’s chief executive Bob Collymore told Reuters the operator — famous for it successful mobile money platform M-Pesa — will partner with a local software firm, Craft Silicon,  to create the Littlecabs app.

“It is effectively a rival for Uber,” Collymore said. “It is a local competitor which will be cheaper and better for the local community.”

The Littlecab app will be launched in the next three weeks and will ride on Safaricom’s widely used M-Pesa network to process payments, Collymore said.

Safaricom has more than 20 million subscribers on its network and controls close to 70 percent of the Kenyan mobile service market.