inDrive, the ride-hailing company built on a bargaining model, is making a concerted push to become a global super app—starting not in a megacity, but in Kazakhstan. The company is layering high-frequency services like grocery delivery onto its marketplace for price-sensitive users across frontier markets, a bet that others have struggled to pull off at scale.
The strategy leans on a broad existing footprint: inDrive says it operates in 982 cities across 48 countries and has surpassed 360 million app downloads with 6.5 billion transactions. Industry trackers including data.ai have ranked it the world’s second most-downloaded ride-hailing app since 2022, behind Uber, a position that gives it both reach and brand familiarity as it adds new services.
Why this super app push might stick
Unlike most ride-hailing platforms, inDrive’s core “name-your-price” flow has trained users to engage frequently and seek value. That playbook translates naturally into staples like groceries and courier services where frequency, not luxury, drives retention. According to the company, its delivery arm completed over 41 million orders last year and more than 14 million in a single recent quarter—momentum it wants to channel into groceries, an even more habitual category.
Early pilots in Kazakhstan point to sticky behavior: inDrive says users there average five grocery orders per month, with a reported net promoter score of 83%. The service offers more than 5,000 items and a 15-minute delivery promise supported by a growing network of dark stores, which the company says expanded by roughly 30% within weeks of launch. The positioning is unabashedly value-first—executives describe the ambition as becoming the “Aldi of online groceries.”
If the math holds, the synergy is clear: a large, cost-conscious ride-hailing base feeds a grocery and delivery funnel; increased order frequency improves cohort retention and spreads acquisition costs across categories; and couriers can be cross-utilized to smooth demand peaks. That’s the super app flywheel as it’s supposed to work.
Why Kazakhstan is the launchpad
Kazakhstan looks like an unlikely test bed until you scrutinize the data. A recent Dealroom analysis produced with the government-backed Astana Hub highlighted robust digital growth, estimating the country’s tech ecosystem value at about $26 billion—an eighteenfold increase since 2019—and citing strong expansion for inDrive locally. Urban centers such as Almaty and Astana offer dense catchments, rising spending power, and a fast-digitizing retail sector.
Competition exists in grocery delivery, but inDrive is betting that speed plus rock-bottom pricing can unlock a larger addressable market than convenience-only offerings. The company’s next steps include rolling the model into key markets like Brazil, Colombia, Egypt, Pakistan, Peru, and Mexico—regions where logistics costs are a barrier, but where price-led platforms can scale rapidly when they get density right.
What history says about super apps
Global precedent is mixed. WeChat, Meituan, and Alipay in China and players like Gojek and Grab in Southeast Asia demonstrated the power of bundling mobility, payments, and commerce. Others, including Western social platforms and several ride-hailing companies, have struggled to make cross-sell economics work or to persuade users to adopt new behaviors inside one app. In the Middle East, Careem’s super app push under new ownership offers a regional counterexample that execution matters as much as ambition.
Quick-commerce flameouts are a cautionary tale. Getir retrenched, Gorillas was absorbed, and multiple startups exited markets as 15-minute delivery proved brutal on unit economics. inDrive’s twist is to target frontier markets and leverage existing liquidity from rides and courier jobs, potentially lowering customer acquisition and courier idle time. Complementary payment rails could help: GSMA’s latest industry report notes more than a billion registered mobile money accounts globally processing over a trillion dollars annually, underscoring how cash-light ecosystems are maturing in the very markets inDrive prioritizes.
Competitive calculus: price over polish
Uber has broadened its own platform with food, groceries, and retail partnerships in select countries, and in India even piloted a rider bidding feature akin to inDrive’s. Local incumbents—from Ola and Rapido in India to Rappi and iFood in Latin America—already command strong customer habits. inDrive argues it serves a more price-sensitive segment often overlooked by premium-leaning rivals, an audience where a few dollars saved per trip or basket materially changes behavior.
The company has shown a willingness to adapt locally: it experimented with daily driver payouts, variable take rates, and freight models; it invested in Pakistan’s Krave Mart to deepen grocery capabilities; and it capitalized in Pakistan when a major competitor exited, subsequently claiming category leadership there. That flexibility—city-specific services and partnerships where it lacks expertise—could be decisive as it layers on micromobility and public transit integrations.
Risks, unit economics, and the road ahead
Super apps win on frequency but die on margin. Dark stores carry inventory risk and capex; 15-minute SLAs are unforgiving in bad weather and congested cities; and safety, trust, and customer support must scale alongside order volume. inDrive says it is investing in safety training and service reliability, acknowledging that perception is as critical as price in markets where word-of-mouth adoption is powerful.
Key indicators to watch: basket sizes and repeat rates in groceries, courier utilization across dayparts, time-to-density as new cities launch, and whether inDrive can sustain fast delivery while staying meaningfully cheaper than rivals. If the company can turn its bargaining DNA into a durable, value-first marketplace for everyday needs, it may succeed where others with deeper pockets stumbled.