How InDrive gets its commission in Zimbabwe’s cash-based economy

One of the most challenging things about the Zimbabwean market is the payments industry. The frequent changes in policy and the various roadblocks make it difficult to get money in and out of the country. One of the industries that have been challenged by this is the ride-hailing business which in Zimbabwe seems to be led by InDrive.

Quantifying InDrive’s lead in the Southern African country is difficult but a couple of things show that it has made the greatest strides. The first is the most obvious, in Harare, there are no more reliable ride-hailing services than InDrive… Other services might be catching up but InDrive is almost a substitute for the term “ride-hailing” 

The second is that InDrive has been doing traditional marketing by way of billboards as early as the beginning of Q4, 2023. This suggests that the company has seen there is a limit to the number of people they can reach with digital ads and is now going on the offensive with billboards.

That being said, that mode of advertising isn’t cheap… Traditional advertising requires physical production costs and installation that could range in the thousands of dollars a month per installation. Additionally, there are few ways of tracking physical advertising which suggests, at least to us, that the cost is worth it for the business goals they have set for themselves.