Ride-hailing in Kenya is no longer functioning as a side hustle, it is becoming a full-time job for a majority of the drivers, and platform executives are increasingly framing that reality as evidence that the industry is stabilising and expanding its economic role.
- •A study by ride-hailing app Bolt, in collaboration with Ipsos, shows that 53% of ride-hailing drivers in Kenya now rely on the platforms as their main source of income, compared with about 25% in Nigeria and 30% in South Africa.
- •The contrast points to a structural difference: in Kenya, the sector is absorbing workers as a primary labour market rather than acting mainly as a supplement to formal employment.
- •Many drivers in Kenya now value the ability to earn income daily rather than waiting for monthly salaries, and the report links that preference to broader economic instability and the dominance of informal employment.
Platform executives say that shift is not necessarily a negative development for the industry. Instead, they see it as evidence that ride-hailing is moving beyond its early phase as a supplementary activity and becoming a structured source of employment.
“It’s a very good thing because it’s transforming lives. Drivers who started without a vehicle, renting one just to work, are now able to pay it off and own it. Some have grown from a single car into small fleets, and many who once struggled to pay rent can now rely on the income and even use their earnings history to qualify for bank financing,” Bolt General Manager for East Africa, Dimmy Kanyankole told The Kenyan Wall Street.
Whenever taxi drivers strike over commissions and passengers are left stranded, many observers tend to criticise them by stating that ride-hailing was supposed to be gig work that supplements income, not something people depend on to survive. Now that a majority of drivers rely on it as their primary source of income, that shift is increasingly seen as one of the reasons the tensions between drivers, platforms, and regulators keep resurfacing.
Kanyankole, however, argues that the conflict is being misdiagnosed. Rather than focusing primarily on pricing disputes, they say the real pressure on drivers comes from operating costs, particularly fuel and vehicle maintenance, and that is shaping how companies are responding; with a growing emphasis on partnerships designed to reduce costs rather than simply increasing fares.
“Pricing is not a major issue. The biggest issue is the operational cost for the drivers. What we are doing as a company is working with different partners to improve driver earnings by lowering operating expenses,” he said.
Electric vehicle adoption is also being promoted as one of the biggest changes, with drivers who switch from petrol to electric vehicles cutting fuel costs by more than 70%. For drivers unable to make that transition, LPG conversions are being promoted as a way to reduce fuel costs by roughly half.
At the same time, platforms are working with insurers and telecommunications providers to lower insurance premiums and data costs, reflecting a shift toward improving net earnings rather than headline pricing.
The study argues that ride-hailing earnings are also supporting a wider urban ecosystem that includes fuel stations, vehicle maintenance businesses, and small service providers. That broader impact is one reason platform executives increasingly describe the sector as a permanent part of the economy rather than a temporary gig.
Meanwhile, 54% of drivers in the ride-hailing industry stated that their lives have improved significantly by participating in the sector, with another 44% saying their lives have improved slightly. The sector also remains overwhelmingly male-dominated, with 97% of drivers being men and only 3% being women. Bolt has noted that despite this unbalanced figure, its ride-hailing platform has a dedicated female ride option that intends to attract more female drivers in the sector.
The shift is happening against the backdrop of a labour force that has expanded to roughly 23 million people while formal job creation remains limited. The report estimates that 782,300 new jobs were created in 2024, and about 703,700 of them, nearly 90%, were in the informal sector.
Within that environment, ride-hailing has become one of the most accessible ways to generate income quickly, particularly in urban areas.
The scale of the broader gig economy reflects that shift as the study estimates that the sector generates nearly KSh 133.5 billion in value with roughly 1.55 million workers in Kenya, contributing close to 0.85% of GDP.
Within the gig economy, ride-hailing is one of the largest segments. Across the three countries studied, about 36% of gig workers are involved in ride-hailing, making it second only to e-commerce. In that sense, the growth of full-time drivers is being interpreted not as a departure from the original model but as evidence that the model itself is evolving.
