‘Ride pricing is not the end of the innovation’ InDrive, the ride hailing company which operates on a bidding model rather than fixed fares, is looking to impress a wider range of services through its “super app” strategy. The company has begun with grocery delivery in Central Asia and plans to introduce more every day services in its largest markets, betting that a low-cost, high-frequency bundle can prevail in markets where super apps have been difficult to break.
The plan is a bet on an expanding user base and a unique approach to price and product. InDrive boasts hundreds of millions of app downloads and billions of transactions overall, establishing it as one of the most-downloaded ride-sharing apps around the world in recent years. The pitch: to serve price-conscious consumers with everyday utilities, then prompt them to open the app more frequently and reduce acquisition costs across verticals.
Why a super app — and why now
The company’s contention is that frequency is destiny. When people can book a ride, ship a package, fill a pantry in one place, loyalty and lifetime value go up and marketing spend per service goes down. Senior executives say that delivery has been one of the fastest-expanding parts of the business, with tens of millions of completed orders over the past year and a sharp step-up in the latest quarter. That momentum helped make the case for a move into grocery — an anchor use case with weekly cadence.
Importantly, the marketplace DNA of InDrive’s in stark contrast to competitors who have developed around fixed pricing coupled with heavy subsidisation. Its bidding system — riders bid, drivers counter — also translates easily to other categories in which price sensitivity is great and supply is fragmented, like last-mile delivery and small-load freight. That flexibility could be handy as the company tests payments, take rates and daily payouts customized for gig workers in different cities.
Kazakhstan as the launchpad
Like that woman in the movie theater, InDrive selected Kz to launch its grocery service, a service that has thousands of SKUs, priomises rapid delivery and first customer satisfaction scores that any grocer would envy, and competitive prices too. Users order multiple times a month on average, the company says, and it has grown its lineup of so-called dark stores by about a third since the initial rollout to increase speed and availability.
There is a macro case to be made here, as well. Value of Kazakhstani tech ecosystem boomsNew research by Dealroom, conducted in partnership with Astana Hub, points to a rapidly expanding digital economy in Kazakhstan, with a drastic increase in value of the entire tech ecosystem compared to several years ago. That momentum as well as relatively less competition than in mega-markets, gives InDrive space to fine tune logistics, assortment, and unit economics before porting the model over to Latin America, North Africa and South Asia.
The value proposition is straightforward: sturdy basics at prices that seem like a bargain at retail. Executives frame the effort as addressing access gaps that nudge families into more expensive or lower-quality options. If InDrive can continue to provide affordable staples in 15–30 minutes, it can establish frequency and trust — the lifeblood of a super app.
The playbook: price, density and trust
Three levers underpin the strategy. For one, price transparency and negotiation — part of what InDrive is all about — can help supply and demand to meet in volatile markets without subsidies that run forever. A second contributor is geographic density: Focused dark stores and courier networks lower delivery times and enhance basket economics. Third, trust and safety: the company is also investing in training, verification and responsive support to counter perceptions that marketplace models are less predictable.
Outside of groceries, InDrive is experimenting with freight and micromobility, and experimenting with integrations with local businesses and public transit. The company insists it will collaborate where it does not have direct operating muscles, and not try to squeeze all services it plans to offer into its own house of services, a marked departure from some of the past super app bids.
Can it avoid the pitfalls that others have fallen into?
Warnings abound in the graveyard of super app dreams. Apart from China’s WeChat and Southeast Asia’s Gojek and Grab, most of those efforts fizzled, thanks to high subsidy burn, regulatory friction and weak cross-sell. Consumer habits and antitrust scrutiny make all-in-one platforms a tougher sell, especially in countries like the United States and Europe. Even some massive platforms that made efforts to bolt commerce and payments onto themselves have failed to extend out beyond their core use case.
“InDrive believes its chances are better in the developing world, where there are barely any incumbents and when there are, they’re…spent,” the company explains. Some countries have the likes of Uber and Ola as well as local rivals such as Rapido — but DiDi is more focused on segments where there is more flexible pricing and there are lower fees to ride. Where a competitor exits or retreats, InDrive has proven it can grab share quickly — as in Pakistan.
The biggest risks are operational. “Delivery is a capital intensive, and margin evaporates without tight assortment, careful zone planning and high courier utilization.” Safety for customers and the quality of the service have to catch up as categories proliferate. And while the bidding model is a differentiator, as the app layers in groceries, freight and the like, it has to stay intuitive.
What to watch next
Short-term milestones include roll out velocity in Latin America, North Africa and South Asia; repeat order rates and average basket size in early grocery markets; and whether partnerships can accelerate entry into complex categories without weighing down margins. Investors and competitors will also be watching how InDrive balances driver pay, take rates, and delivery guarantees as volumes increase.
If the company can maintain compelling prices while increasing reliability and safety, it may write a new playbook for super apps in frontier economies — one built more on local density and product pragmatism, less on subsidies and a user base that comes back not for perks, but for everyday value.