The departure of Uber from Nigeria’s ride-hailing market should prompt a broader review of how mobility platforms operate in the country, Nigerian technology company SimpliRide has said.
The company argued that rising fuel prices, vehicle maintenance expenses, insurance costs and vehicle financing obligations are putting increasing financial pressure on drivers, whose ability to remain profitable is critical to the survival of the industry.
SimpliRide Country Manager, Alero Fregene, said Uber’s decision to end its ride-hailing operations in Nigeria after 12 years offered an opportunity for industry stakeholders to examine whether existing business models remain sustainable under current economic conditions.
According to Fregene, the financial health of drivers should be central to discussions about the future of ride-hailing in Nigeria.
Drivers, she noted, often shoulder the major expenses associated with providing the service, including vehicle acquisition or financing, fuel, repairs, maintenance and insurance.
She said mobility companies therefore needed to develop commercial structures that took into account the realities faced by drivers.
“Uber was a pioneer of modern app-based mobility in Nigeria, and its contribution to the development of this industry cannot simply be erased because the company has decided to leave,” Fregene said.
She added that changing market conditions required operators to continually reassess their strategies.
“Markets evolve. Economic realities evolve. And business models must evolve with them,” she said.
Subscription model
SimpliRide operates a subscription-based system in which drivers pay a fixed fee to the platform rather than giving up a percentage of every fare as commission.
The company said the arrangement was intended to give drivers greater certainty over their earnings and reduce the impact of commission deductions, particularly for drivers completing a high volume of trips.
Fregene described drivers as the “economic engine” of the ride-hailing sector, arguing that platforms could not achieve long-term sustainability if the people responsible for providing the vehicles and delivering the service were unable to make viable returns.
“We asked a very basic question: if the person providing the vehicle, purchasing the fuel, maintaining the vehicle and physically delivering the service cannot build sustainable economics, how sustainable can the ecosystem around that driver ultimately be?” she said.
She also said international ride-hailing models could not simply be transplanted into Nigeria without adjustments for local conditions.
The cost of vehicle ownership and financing, fuel, maintenance and insurance creates a distinct operating environment for Nigerian drivers, she said, creating room for local operators to develop models tailored to those realities.
Balancing drivers and riders
Fregene, however, cautioned that local ownership alone would not guarantee success.
“Being Nigerian does not automatically make a company better,” she said, arguing that domestic operators must continue to compete through technology, reliability and the quality of their customer experience.
She also stressed the importance of maintaining a balance between driver earnings and passenger affordability.
While better returns for drivers are necessary to keep vehicles and drivers on the road, she said excessive fare increases could reduce demand and make services inaccessible to passengers.
The industry’s long-term growth, she argued, would therefore depend on achieving a sustainable balance between affordable fares and reasonable driver earnings.
Drivers and corporate mobility
Following Uber’s withdrawal, SimpliRide said it was expanding its Driver Transition Programme to support professional drivers looking for additional sources of trip demand.
The company said drivers joining the programme would not be required to leave other ride-hailing platforms, allowing them to potentially work across multiple services while seeking to improve their income.
SimpliRide also pointed to opportunities in corporate mobility, particularly after Uber’s exit from the corporate transportation segment.
According to the company, businesses, hotels and institutions will continue to require structured transportation services, including employee movement and airport transfers, creating opportunities for alternative providers.
The company said its platform has surpassed 23,000 downloads.
Fregene, however, said download figures alone were not a sufficient measure of performance in a competitive mobility market. She identified active drivers, rider demand, completed trips and service reliability as more meaningful indicators of whether a platform was successfully building a sustainable business.
With Uber’s exit reshaping Nigeria’s ride-hailing landscape, competition among existing and emerging operators is expected to increase as companies seek to attract drivers and passengers while managing the country’s rising transportation costs.
For SimpliRide, the next stage of the sector’s development will ultimately depend on whether operators can build commercially sustainable platforms that also reflect the economic realities of drivers and passengers.
