Little Ride has slushed its prices to become the cheapest taxi-hailing service in Kenya

The price war is back. The tide has not yet settled in the taxi hailing industry in Kenya. The first company to initiate the price war was Uber. UberX had the financial muscle thus is slashed its prices in Nairobi by 35 percent back in July this year. This was to counter Craft Silicon’s Little Ride prices which were the lowest at that time on launch.

Little Ride responded by saying that it will not engage in price wars since it did not have the financial muscle to do so. The company said that it will focus in offering riders value added services such as on-board Wi-Fi. The Safaricom backed company also decided to offer drivers smartphones to aid them in their duties. Apart from that the drivers were to receive data bundles daily. On the other hand, the drivers also doubled up as M-Pesa agents.

A few months later and Little Ride, a brain child of Craft Silicon and Safaricom Limited, has reduced its prices to be lowest in the country, at least for the basic cab option. For those opting to ride using Little’s Basic Ride, you will be charged Ksh.30 per kilometre from high of Ksh.55 per kilometre. The price per minute spent on the road remains unchanged at Ksh.4. The minimum fare has also been reduced from Ksh.270 to Ksh.190, excluding the Basic, Ladybug and Comfort rides. A new twist is the introduction of Ksh.100 base fare which Little Ride did not charge initially.

Note that UberX has different prices per kilometre and minimum fare in regard to the type of ride you choose. Only the price per kilometre and base is constant irrespective of the type of ride you choose for your journey

The new prices came into effect last Friday, 25^th November as from 1600hrs (+3GMT). They will be effected both in Nairobi and Mombasa where Little Ride has ventured. The price wars in the taxi-hailing service only stand to benefit clients. Hurray to that!