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E-hailing taxi service apps have inbuilt security options for each drivers and passengers. PHOTO: Samantha lee-Jacobs
- French ride-hailing app Heetch launched in Senegal in January.
- Heetch is the second ride-hailing app to be launched within the nation.
- Senegal’s middle-class has grown, coupled with smartphone penetration making the market engaging.
Maguette Mbaye had all the time taken taxis to her banking job in Senegal’s capital Dakar, however haggling over costs and inhaling fumes by means of the open home windows each day wore her down.
She left all that behind when French ride-hailing app Heetch launched in January. The trip prices just a little extra, however she considers it a small value to pay for the peace of thoughts of a greater automobile and stuck value.
“Typically we’ve dusty taxis the place the home windows do not shut, the door solely opens from the skin. Since I have been utilizing Heetch I have been getting first rate automobiles,” stated Mbaye, 33.
Heetch is the second ride-hailing app to be launched in Senegal after Yango, which is owned by Russian tech large Yandex , began operations in December.
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Each are testing a largely untapped marketplace for ride-hailing companies in Francophone West Africa, the place the trade has been slower to take maintain than in Anglophone international locations, akin to Nigeria and Ghana.
A rising center class and widespread smartphone use have created a pretty market in Senegal, however there are challenges. Many drivers are illiterate, have by no means used a GPS and are used to negotiating costs.
Yango, lively in 21 international locations worldwide, launched in Ivory Coast in 2018, the place it competes with trade large Uber .
Heetch, one of many prime three ride-hailing apps in France, additionally plans to launch in Ivory Coast this month. It stated about 3 000 individuals have downloaded the appliance thus far in Senegal. Yango declined to offer figures.
Any taxi driver can join both app in the event that they bear coaching and their car meets security requirements. Whereas a couple of hundred have signed up for Heetch and Yango, some are unimpressed.
“What I earn from driving across the metropolis is greater than those that use Yango,” stated Modou Gning. “The place the shopper is meant to pay 2 000 CFA francs ($3.37), Yango fees 1 300. It is good for Yango, however not the taxi driver.”
The app firms are aware to not antagonise taxi drivers, who in different international locations have staged protests towards ride-hailing apps.
“We aren’t a taxi killer software,” stated Patrick Pedersen, Heetch’s common supervisor for enlargement.
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