Yango targets 10 new African markets in $150m push

Ride-hailing operator Yango Group, plans to invest at least $150 million into African expansion this year, as the Dubai-based platform pushes into new markets.

With one million drivers and operations in 35 countries globally, the company with a footprint spanning more than a dozen African markets, is targeting entry into 10 additional countries in the continent this year.

While rivals concentrated on Africa’s biggest economies, Yango spent years building ride-hailing networks in smaller and less contested cities across the continent.

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“When people go to Africa, typically you go to the top four countries Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa and Kenya,” said Yango Africa Chief Executive Officer Adeniyi Adebayo. “What that creates is a lot of capital chasing the same goal in all of these markets, and you’ve got a race to the bottom.”

The company expects growth in Africa to exceed 60% this year, betting that secondary urban markets and locally-owned transport networks offer a more sustainable model than the heavily subsidised gig-economy approach used by many competitors.

“We don’t work directly with drivers in any of our markets. We work with transport operators,” Adebayo said. This approach reduces the need for upfront consumer subsidies, allowing expansion to be driven more by operational rollout, he said.

West and Central Africa remain at the core of the company’s expansion strategy, with the main growth constraints currently including currency volatility and regulatory frameworks, such as vehicle caps, licensing costs and local ownership requirements, according to a recent KPMG Advisory report. Fuel costs can account for as much as 25% of total fares, a pressure currently being intensified by the war in Iran, and prompting operators to accelerate a longer-term shift toward electric vehicles, it said.

This year Yango is delivering a thousand EVs to Abidjan alone, Adebayo said.

“If you look at the top 50 cities across West Africa and look at how many of those cities we’ve covered, we’ve barely started,” he said. “We’re also looking at smaller markets in the continent’s south, including Namibia, Botswana and Mozambique.”

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