Kenya has an estimated 30 cars per 1,000 people compared to South Africa’s 165 cars per 1,000 people and 700 in the United States.
However, despite the low number of vehicles per person these vehicles spend 90 per cent of their lifetime in parking bays after the morning and evening commutes.
The average car is unused 92 per cent of the time, according to McKinsey, the management consultancy.
A new mobile platform Zuru car rental app on playstore is seeking to help car owners make money by renting out these cars while helping travellers to find cars for hire near them.
The search for alternative revenue streams by Kenyans whose income was hit by the coronavirus pandemic has seen many car owners join the car hire industry to support themselves.
However, it is the lack of a reliable car hire marketplace that gave rise to the Zuru Car Rental to build a mobile application on which car owners can safely load cars for hire.
“If one vehicle enters a car-sharing fleet — such as Zuru — it displaces 19 vehicles. So shared mobility is a big piece of how the automotive sector gets into the circular economy,” the company said in a statement.
Car owners across the country are utilizing the system to make money by renting out their cars to customers.
“I was just surfing through the appstore in search of an app on which I can hire my car and I found Zuru,” said Robert Mwita, a car owner in Mombasa.
The Zuru app on playstore was formed late last year to connect car owners and customers who needed to travel upcountry but could not find a means of transport due to pressure on public transport.
The application allows car owners to meet prescreened customers who have uploaded their KYC credentials such as IDs, passport images, driving license. The company is also working to include facial recognition logins.
The demand has grown fast in the last three months with more than 70 bookings weekly indicating rising uptake. The app has cars in Nairobi, Mombasa, Eldoret, Nakuru, and Kisii.
Data from Euromonitor, a London based research firm shows that Kenya’s car hire market is growing at a rate of eight per cent per annum except during last year when Covid-19 travel restrictions forced the industry to its knees.
“Our job is to provide that infrastructure so that a person in rural or urban Kenya can get a vehicle anytime and anywhere to go to the hospital or for holiday using a mobile phone,” said Mr Otini.
The number of licensed drivers is about three times the cars present in the country.
Due to traffic problems, many people leave their cars at home and some do not like to buy a car for travelling daily but they would like to drive when they go for outings on weekends.
“Scarcity of parking and government restrictions on traffic congestion will encourage the growth of car rental industry,” says a report on Car Hire Industry by Globaldata.com
The car hire industry is dominated by a number of large international car hire firms such as Avis, Hertz and a number of local players
The industry has also been held back by the lack of an affordable insurance product that would cater for pay per use clients. Kenya’s car insurance only caters for comprehensive, PSV and third party.
However, Zuru is in negotiations with two insurance players to launch a pay per use insurance and ramp up electric vehicle subscriptions.
The car hire market is worth an estimated Sh5 billion in Kenya and Sh500 billion.
The market is expected to expand due to the disruption of the sector by technology helping car owners to rent their cars without having to open an office or lend it to a car hire firms.
