Six years after Moove put 76 cars on Lagos roads and asked Uber drivers to pay for them out of their earnings, the mobility company is leaving Nigeria, its founding market, and handing many of those drivers their cars.
In a statement on Thursday, Moove said it will hand over eligible vehicles worth about ₦35 billion ($26.3 million) to the drivers, with no further payment due from October 1. Every Moove employee will also get a free car. The announcement came five weeks after Uber, Moove’s investor and its only ride-hailing partner in Nigeria, exited the country.
“Nigeria will always be where Moove started,” the company said in its statement, describing the handover as its way of thanking the customers and staff who built the business.
Moove’s exit is a knock-on effect of Uber leaving Nigeria. If you think of Moove’s Nigerian business as a lending business, then it relied on Uber earnings data to decide who got a car and ensure they kept paying. When Uber left Nigeria, that data went with it, and Moove lost its way to price and collect those loans.
Originally published by TechCabal.