The Spanish on demand delivery platform Glovo is on course to conquer Africa’s online delivery business space as it continues to become a major thing.
This is after the company announced its plans of expanding Glovo services and operations to include Ghana and Tunisia, bringing its current operations to a total of seven countries on the continent.
Earlier this year, the Spanish on demand delivery platform launched its service operations in Accra in Ghana, and in the following month it saw extending the service to the city of Tema, and it expects to launch in Tunis in Tunisia next month [October].
Also Read: Glovo expands in Kenya
we take it completely for granted that you can push a button on your smartphone and something happens nearly instantly in the real world.
This trend is fast expanding to all sorts of use cases due to our ever growing need for instant gratification and reducing the time required to getting things done.
The investment of the on demand logistic Glovo, as of now in Africa is worth a combined total of $30M and the company expects to invest an additional $60M over the next 12 months to further accelerate growth to other parts.
Indeed, there is an emerging middle-class Africans lifestyle that is ‘always on, always connected and always real-time’ thanks to smartphones, mobile apps and broadband Internet.
Glovo is further looking to conquer new African markets with its uniqueness of the platform within local communities by assisting independent businesses and aiding them with their resources to reach new customers online.
Glovo app is already available in Morocco, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Nigeria, bringing its services to more than 40 cities, more than 300,000 users, 8,000 restaurants and 12,000 couriers.
According to Glovo’s General Manager of Sub-Saharan Africa William Benthall, Glovo’s expansion in Africa is something to pride in.
“There’s been an unprecedented spike in the on-demand delivery business in Africa and the expansion of our services to new countries and cities is both a reflection of that trend and a testament of our commitment to the continent.” He said.
Glovo is slowly but sure positioning itself as a go to food delivery service provider due to its multi category offer where at a click of a button they can deliver what you requested just anything that fits on a bike.
Glovo is more than a food delivery service like UberEATS for example. They can deliver anything provided it fits in their delivery bag on a BodaBoda.
Glovo already has core local leadership teams in its established countries in Africa and the company is committed to continuing its policy to hire top local talent.
During the initial phase of its new expansion, the company plans to double its number of employees and add another 200 employees across the region by the end of 2022.
Glovo is on track to scale up its Q-Commerce Division (that’s “Q” for quick). Q-Commerce means that consumers can use Glovo to order from their favorite supermarkets and neighborhood stores, and now additionally order from Glovo Market.
Glovo Kenya launched its own Micro Fulfillment Centre [MFC] in June 2021 with the intent of reducing the amount of time taken during deliveries to under 30 minutes.
Joining the market is one thing, but retaining it is another. Glovo has grown wildly popular among many Kenyans especially those living in the City Centre as they have cited it as reliable and efficient.
Glovo plans to launch more MFCs, as there is still unmet demand at a much larger scale, as consumers continue to adopt online groceries shopping with over 5% MoM growth in Africa.
Glovo Market uses the latest in-store digital technology and dedicated resources to ensure the quickest possible delivery time. Micro Fulfillment Centers have considerably reduced the delivery time from 45 minutes to 30 minutes.
Currently Glovo is optimizing to get it down to 20 minutes. Furthermore, the MFCs have also enabled wider coverage and, in turn, grown the number of Q-commerce orders.
In Kenya, Glovo has signed top partners like Naivas, Carrefour and Chandarana on their platform to serve diverse customer needs.
Groceries have played a huge role in the spike of orders, and currently have the lion’s share of the market. Glovo controls more than 50% of the groceries deliveries in Kenya. Some of the other in-app purchases include alcohol, health-related products, beauty, and fashion products.
The delivery startup is already displacing major players in the crowded delivery industry with its vision of becoming a lifestyle app.
Getting into a crowded market could be easy but staying successful would remain the toughest game startups will face however, getting the timing right is very much crucial.
Glovo works on Android and iOS mobile devices meaning pretty much anyone can use it.
