Ride-hailing arrived in Lagos in 2014 with Uber's name on it. It switched off there on 2 September, and in Uganda, where the company had operated since 2016, after what Uber called a global review of its operations.
Uber did not say why it was leaving Nigeria, a country of more than 200 million people where a decade of double-digit inflation has eroded purchasing power. Estonia's Bolt has been its main competitor there, and newer entrants have taken more of the share Uber once had to itself.
A spokesperson drew a line around the decision. “This decision is limited strictly to these two markets and does not impact our operations across the rest of the continent,” the spokesperson said, adding that Uber “remains deeply committed to sub-Saharan Africa, where we continue to see robust growth and long-term opportunity”.
The restructuring it landed inside
The exits arrived in the same week as a much larger reorganisation. Uber is cutting about 3 300 jobs, roughly 10% of its global headcount, according to an internal email from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi that was published online on Wednesday and reported by TechCrunch. Management roles are being reduced by 20%, and remote work is ending for all but a fraction of staff. It is News24 that places the two African exits inside that restructuring.
Khosrowshahi's own explanation is about size rather than geography. Growth had brought “more layers, more coordination, more fragmented ownership, and in some cases structures that made sense when businesses were smaller but no longer serve us well at our current scale”, he reportedly wrote. The same account describes Uber merging its engineering, science and delivery divisions.
The $15 billion deal on the other side
Money is not moving in one direction only. On the same day, Delivery Hero's supervisory and management boards recommended shareholders accept Uber's $15 billion takeover offer, calling the price fair and adequate. Uber was already Delivery Hero's largest shareholder and has set an acceptance threshold of half the shares plus one, and Prosus has agreed to sell its 17% stake.
Nothing has closed. If it does, the deal would roughly double Uber's global delivery footprint and put it in a better position against DoorDash and Just Eat Takeaway.
Uber's own account is that South Africa is untouched by any of this, and nobody at the company has said more than that. What has changed is the record: since 2014 Uber's answer in Africa was expansion, and this week it was two closures.
