Football Kenya Federation president Nick Mwendwa (right). PHOTO | FILE
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Teke Taxi has already signed up about 20 corporate cab companies including Jimcab, Jatco, Alitex, Virgin, Wote, and Kenatco, where the app links the operators to their corporate clients.
Football Kenya Federation (FKF) president Nick Mwendwa has ventured into the taxi hailing business with an online cab application dubbed Teke Taxi. Mr Mwenda said last week Teke Taxi has already signed up about 20 corporate cab companies including Jimcab, Jatco, Alitex, Virgin, Wote, and Kenatco, where the app links the operators to their corporate clients.
Teke Taxi already has about 56 drivers signed on, who have made 200 journeys in the one-month period the app has been on pilot basis in Nairobi, the soccer techie said.
The football chief is also taking on rivals with a $1 (Sh100) commission per day per driver, which is lower than the 25 per cent cut Uber chops off drivers’ earnings, or the Sh50 per ride user fee charged by Mondo Ride.
“We’re targeting corporate taxi firms to enable them retain their customers. They are facing a threat,” said Mr Mwenda, chief executive of Riverbank Solutions Ltd, a Nairobi-based IT firm.
“Our commission rates are cheaper and stable than our competitors,” he told the Business Daily.
Teke Taxi currently does not have a standard pricing schedule, meaning customers e-hailing a cab through the platform will pay depending on the tariffs of the cab firm picked by the app.
However, Mr Mwenda said Teke Taxi would in a fortnight unveil a ‘general’ module for individual taxi operators.
Mwendwa, 37, was in February elected to head Kenya’s football federation after flooring Nairobi-based lawyer and Gor Mahia chairman Ambrose Rachier.
He is also a long-serving chairman and founder of Kariobangi Sharks, which joined the Kenya Premier League this year.
The football administrator cum app developer said Teke Taxi is banking on the niche corporate market and lower commissions to take on established players such as Uber, Mondo Ride, Little Cab, Taxify, Sendy and Maramoja.
Nairobi metropolis is estimated to have more than 10,000 taxicabs each doing an average of four trips daily, according to official data, valuing the capital city’s taxi business at Sh20 million a day.
This continues to whet the appetite of global and local players seeking to digitise Kenya’s chaotic but lucrative taxi industry.
Mr Mwenda declined to disclose how much he had invested in the app but said it was part of the company’s ‘organic growth.’ “With our strategy, we expect to break even in eight months,” he said.
Teke Taxi is working with the Corporate Cabs Association, a lobby group of more than 20 taxi firms, and said it targets signing up 1,600 drivers to the app by the end of the year.
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