No Free Ride: Uber’s African Retreat
First, “Uber” became a verb. Now, in parts of Africa, it is becoming past tense.
The company’s withdrawal from Nigeria and Uganda complicates one of competition policy’s favorite storylines: U.S. technology platforms enter, conquer, and never leave. That assumption has helped fuel a rush to import rules modeled on the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which imposes special obligations on the largest digital platforms. Yet African ride-hailing markets are not following the script.
Uber once seemed built for precisely that story. Born from a founder’s struggle to find a taxi on a snowy night in Paris, it quickly became one of the most disruptive startups in recent memory and transformed urban transportation. Its African retreat shows that a revolutionary idea does not guarantee permanent dominance.
Nigeria and Uganda are part of a broader pattern. In September 2025, Uber announced its departure from Ivory Coast. Earlier this year, it announced that it would also leave Tanzania.
Uber still operates in Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa, and has said it remains committed to the continent. Four departures in less than a year make that commitment look considerably narrower than it once did.
What explains the retreat? Uber’s public statements offer little guidance. Possible explanations include its inability—or unwillingness—to adapt its business model to local markets, fierce competition, currency volatility, rising operating costs, and a global strategy increasingly focused elsewhere.
Those possibilities raise the more interesting question: Does Uber’s retreat reflect failures peculiar to the company, or does it reveal something deeper about competition in African markets? This post argues for the latter.