Craft Silicon have their ambitions set on a bigger picture. With the backing of Safaricom Limited they were able to launch a taxi hailing service dubbed Little Ride. Their first launch town was Nairobi city. Later on they launched the service in Mombasa city. Come next year they have plans to launch as far as the West African country, Nigeria. But this will not be before they enter the Ugandan market. All this is subject to happen come early next year, 2017.
“We are now only operating in Kenya, but we are launching in Uganda soon. Safaricom is a good partner but they may not be in every market, but we have to figure out how to grow the business to other markets. Craft Silicon operates in 45 countries globally, and we are going to launch in all these countries even if Safaricom is not there. We are launching in Nigeria in the Q1 of 2017.”
-Kamal Budhabhatti, CEO Craft Silicon
Given that Safaricom carries its operations within Kenya, Craft Silicon will be looking to partner with other players in the respective markets. They have set their focus on the bigger picture of launching in the 45 countries that they currently operate in.
The latest statistics from Little Ride indicate that they have managed to have 1,500 drivers subscribed to their service. The number of trips Little Ride is able to make on a day ranges from 4,000 to 5,000. When Little launched, it made it clear that it does not have the financial muscle like Uber’s to engage in price wars. For them they were going to offer added-services to the riders as they enjoyed their ride.
One of these services is the free on-board Wi-Fi that the rider can enjoy. This data bundle is offered by Safaricom on a daily basis to the drivers. This is on top of the fact that Safaricom also offers Smartphones to the drivers to enhance their operations. The drivers now also double up as mobile M-Pesa agents.
