SafeBoda Flees Nigerian Market Due to Harsh Economy

By Adedapo Adesanya

Ugandan bike-hailing startup, SafeBoda, has announced that it is exiting Nigeria.

After the Lagos State government banned ride-hailing services from the metropolis, the company forayed into Ibadan in December 2019 but began only operations in March 2020.

This March, the company announced that it had completed over 3 million rides, and 50,000 deliveries with over 10,000 riders and 100,000 passengers.

In just a little over one year since launch, the startup crossed the one million rides milestone, growing at an impressive 150 per cent month-on-month. In another 11 months, it tripled its traction to three million completed rides, cementing its dominant position in the region.

However, due to the reality facing the business now, the organisation wants to leave Africa’s largest economy to focus on bringing the company to profitability by deepening its core transportation offering in Uganda, its largest market.

In a statement, it said Nigeria “in its current state is not economically viable and unfortunately requires significant investment at this challenging time in the global economic landscape.”

This will make Nigeria the second market, but first in West Africa, it is exiting after it left Kenya in November 2020, less than two years after expanding its services to the east African country.

The firm said this was due to the negative effects of COVID-19 on its operations.

It is not clear the next step for its other businesses but in August 2022, SafeBoda announced a car-hailing service, SafeCar, in Kampala and one month after, it also launched in Ibadan, Nigeria.

It was reported that SafeBoda claims its car-hailing business has grown 40 per cent weekly since its launch in early September.