The upcoming Zambian taxi company Ulendo is seeking to exploit an opening in the country following the absence of Uber in the country by launching their own taxi on-demand app.
This bold move has also been prompted by the fact that there has not been any word from Uber of plans to launch their services in Lusaka and Ulendo intends to make the best out of this opening.
Despite a few differences here and there, Ulendo seems to have successfully cloned the Uber app and is now live with 500 users and 40 drivers which is a not bad for a start.
The founder of this opportunistic firm, Haggai Mandefu, during his interview with Disrupt Africa said the firm has come to make it possible for people to get rides from the comfort of their homes or simply at the touch of a button. According to him, this will save people from having to flag taxis from the highways or entering unfamiliar cars. He adds that this app will be a safer, affordable and a reliable way to get a ride.
So far, their app resembles and works as the Uber app only they have devised several differences. For starters, the users of this app don’t pay in cash for their rides unlike in Uber where this has only been achieved in several places not all. In addition, the founder stated that Ulendo surpasses Uber in the number of cars available that it shows. Also, users are also able to see the position of their request with each of the drivers revealed on the app.
Recently, he added that they had received requests to allow the drivers to be move credits from their app. Mandefu was proud that they had successfully incorporated this functionality which further enhanced their service delivery. Now, the drivers could directly send credits to their families or friends from their driver app according to the founder.
It so happens that people have their own driver preference outing to call them directly for a cab since they may trust them more or simply have developed a good customer relationship. Unfortunately, the drivers may be caught up on another ride or the client might be at a relatively far pick up location hindering the drivers from accepting the jobs. With these credits, however, the feature allows the drivers to share jobs. A driver can send a job to another one for which they will still earn a commission.
So far, Ulendo has only managed to launch operations in Lusaka but they intend to spread their operations all over Zambia. By the end of the year, Ulendo plans to grow its fleet to around 500 or more to reach up to 3,000 users.
