Little (formerly Little Cab) now works with USSD
Little (formerly Little Cab) now works with USSD
Little, formerly Little Cab, the Safaricom-blessed, Craft Silicon project that aims to beat Uber in Kenya, now works with USSD.
Here’s why this is awesome: Safaricom grew to where it is today by bringing things, simplifying things so much that feature phones gain the power and abilities that are normally in the domain of smartphones and smarter web services only. Take, for instance, MPesa – a powerhouse that is a big chunk of Safaricom’s cash-cow and the envy of telcos the world over – yet it runs on USSD. Things like topping up airtime, paying bills, banking & mobile money transfer, checking the news even. And now, thanks to Safaricom you can now hail a Little cab by dialling *826# on your mobile phone.
Announcing hitting over 23,000 downloads of its mobile app in the iOS, Android and Windows as well as over 1,400 drivers signing up, Little now wants those with feature phones to join in in the hailing business. This also covers those unique times when you can’t get a reliable internet connection (this is Kenya anyway) and want to catch a ride.
“The idea behind Little powered by Safaricom is to provide affordable and convenient cab services to as many Kenyans as possible and I believe we are well on our way to achieving this through the launch of the USSD service,” said Craft Silicon CEO Kamal Budhabhatti.
“We are also committed to our drivers’ welfare. Since our launch, Little takes no more than 15% off drivers’ earnings compared to other players in the market who take between 18% to 25%.”
Little has been adding features and bringing offers and promotions along with its service such as free airtime (up to Ksh 500 worth), Live Fare, free Wi-Fi onboard the cabs, Real-time driver information, Live GPS maps and the option to travel on your accrued Bonga Points among others, to entice users to use Little and to battle Uber, which has held its own quite a bit in the country. This is despite the little trademark hurdle they faced a week or so ago where they found the ‘Little Cab’ title already spoken for by someone else.
Godspeed, Little.
