Uber by the numbers in South Africa, Kenya & Nigeria

Uber tracks you all the time, so it knows a lot about you. It knows when you’re sleeping, it knows when you’re awake. It knows when you’ve been bad or good… You get the picture.

That means it must sit on a treasure trove of data and related insights, then. Fortunately, Uber South Africa’s Timothy Willis delivered some rather interesting numbers.

Uber had a number of intriguing stats to share at AfricaCom – now if only we could get our hands on all their data…

Willis also confirmed that UberPool didn’t have a launch date in South Africa yet.

“You have to reach a certain level of scale to launch Pool, just within the city. We’re not quite there yet but hopefully soon,” Willis told Memeburn.

Anyway, here are some of the standout numbers from the session…

38% – The top use case for Uber in Cape Town’s northern suburbs is shopping trips, representing over a third of all Uber trips. The data showed that Tyger Valley Shopping Centre was the most popular shopping destination beyond the Boerewors Curtain. Interestingly enough, Willis says that Uber was also able to identify call centres using the service to get their employees home late at night.

47 – The number of nationalities that have used the service in South Africa.

60 – Nigeria has us beaten though, as people from 60 different nations have used Uber in the country.

70 – Kenya believe that people from this many nationalities have used the service in Nairobi? That was a terrible pun.

75 – The number of countries that have Uber operations, with 475 supported cities.

75% – The revenue split in favour of drivers, according to Willis. “We ensure that 75% or more of every fare goes back into the driver-partner’s pocket,” he explained.

91% – The percentage of drivers who say that earning more income is the number one reason for them joining Uber, according to a poll last year. 87% of Uber drivers polled said that their number one reason was to be their own boss and set their own schedule. 85% of polled drivers were looking for more flexibility and to balance their home/work lives.

1000+ – The firm claims that 1000 “economic opportunities” were created in Nigeria and Kenya each since launch. It forecasts over 3000 more for Nigeria in the next year.

4000+ – The smart cab service claims that, since launching in South Africa in August 2013, it has enabled over 4000 “economic opportunities”.

8000 – The number of employees it claims to have worldwide. If a recent UK court battle is anything to go by, then you could argue that the number is actually 1.5 million (the number of active Uber drivers).

100 000+ – This is the number of “potential riders” opening the app in Kenya each month. The service hit the country in January 2015.

2 000 000 – Uber says that it enabled two million trips in South Africa last year.