Exclusive Interview with inDrive's Business Development Representative: Vincent Lilane Discusses Company's Growth and Competitive Edge in South Africa

South Africa: An exclusive interview with Vincent Lilane, Business Development Representative of inDrive in South Africa.

1. Why do you believe that you can compete with existing ride hailing Apps which operate in the South Africa market?

Today inDrive is present in 47 countries. We successfully compete with other players throughout the world because we have different approaches, different goals. inDrive's mission is to challenge injustice. For this reason, for example, we always maintain the lowest service fee in the world - about 10% without VAT, while other players usually charge about 20-30%. At the same time, in some cities we do not charge a service fee at all: East London, Pietermaritzburg, Rustenburg. We don't use obscure algorithms that hike the price for passengers. We do not charge extra for additional features.

The conditions that we offer become the reason why word of mouth quickly spreads the fame of our service. It works! In many countries, we are either the most downloaded application, or confidently hold the 2nd or 3rd position in the rankings.

Here’s another important point: we never made it a goal to be different from other players. We want to keep our business helpful and honest! In accordance with this strategy, we for example became the first ride-hailing app in South Africa that provides free internet access to inDrive app. This means that our users no longer need to think about how much Internet traffic will cost them when they use inDrive.

2. How much growth do you aim for in South Africa?

We are now seeing two- three-digit growth across all indicators. However, it is wrong to see these figures now because we are still at the beginning of the road ("low base effect") and are building our stats.

Our goal is to hold a prominent position in ride hailing and other mobility verticals in the foreseeable future. We believe that the South African market can take up to 5% of our global GMV.

3. In which cities of SA do you already operate?

We operate in 9 cities – Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Gqeberha, East London, Pietermaritzburg, Rustenburg.

Also in South Africa, we offer our Intercity trips service, which allows people to conveniently travel between cities at a fair price. In essence, this is a carpooling service.

4. Will there be additional services in South Africa compared to other countries?

inDrive is a marketplace of urban services. The more "mature" the country, the more services on the platform we have. Our offering ranges from courier services, intercity trips to tutoring or repair work, job search for blue-collar workers, and much more.

The launch strategy is always the same: ride-hailing comes first, while other services follow.

I do not expect that we will develop services that are not available in other countries in South Africa, but I believe that we can achieve stronger results here than in other countries, because it is a fairly developed market of Africa, with a high penetration level of mobile technologies. We see demand for "justice" as some global companies set not very favorable conditions for their people.

5. Which market are you most influential in?

In each region we have countries where we hold leading positions. In Asia - Pakistan, in the CIS - Kazakhstan, in Latin America - Mexico and Colombia, in the Middle East - Egypt and Morocco.

However, this applies specifically to ride-hailing. We are currently investing a lot in transforming the platform into a marketplace of urban services, so in the near future it will be appropriate to clarify which service we are talking about - ride-hailing, courier, cargo, e-commerce, etc.

Generally speaking, we are the №2 most downloaded ride-hailing app in the world.

6. How much investment has inDrive received so far?

In 2011, we raised about $150 million from Insight Partners, General Catalyst and Bond Capital, putting us at $1.2 billion valuation. We plan to do an IPO in a couple of years, and we believe that the company's capitalization may exceed $10 billion.

An important point is that inDrive is one of the few financially sustainable transportation services since the first year of operation. We have raised investments with the sole purpose of assuring that we are moving in the right direction.