inDrive targets growth in emerging markets as it adds grocery delivery
inDrive, the international mobility platform known for ride-hailing and a negotiation-based pricing model, is preparing to broaden its footprint and product mix in 2026, betting that demand in emerging markets will keep rising even as competition intensifies across global mobility.
In an interview conducted alongside the presentation of new research from Oxford Economics, Andries Smit, inDrive’s Chief Growth Businesses Officer, outlined the company’s view of where the next wave of growth will come from: expanding supply of drivers, deepening daily-use cases, and extending the app into adjacent services such as grocery delivery.
Demand is growing, but supply remains the bottleneck
Ride-hailing adoption has increased for years as urban populations expand and residents seek flexible alternatives to public transport and private car ownership. inDrive argues that this trend remains intact in 2026, particularly in emerging economies where demographic and economic shifts are adding new users to the market.
“Now in those emerging markets, we are seeing some really exciting trends,” Smit said, pointing to population growth, improving economic activity, and younger generations entering the workforce. He framed the company’s role as enabling access for cost-conscious riders and creating income opportunities for drivers who previously had fewer mobility-related earning options.
While discussions about market saturation continue in some regions, inDrive’s leadership emphasized that the limiting factor is not rider demand. Instead, the company sees driver availability as the core constraint. Smit said that if the platform could “generate more drivers faster,” growth would accelerate, adding that the category can remain attractive for drivers for several years if marketplaces stay balanced.
Why grocery delivery is a “natural extension”
One of the most notable shifts in the company’s 2026 roadmap is its push into grocery delivery. Rather than positioning it as a simple diversification play, inDrive is tying the move to how consumers already behave inside the app.
According to Smit, ride-hailing is a high-intent activity: users open the application because they need to accomplish a specific task, not to browse. That intent often translates into sustained engagement during key moments—while requesting a trip, waiting for pickup, and riding to a destination.
Those windows of attention, he argued, create an opportunity to serve other everyday needs. In many emerging markets, households balancing multiple jobs and responsibilities face increasing time pressure alongside tight budgets. Grocery purchasing—frequent, essential, and time-consuming—fits the profile of a service that can be bundled into a mobility platform without feeling disconnected from the core product.
The strategic logic is that a platform already helping users save time getting around can also help them secure daily essentials, especially for families prioritizing affordability and convenience.
Oxford Economics study highlights negotiated fares
At the center of inDrive’s positioning is its negotiated-fare approach, which lets riders and drivers agree on a price rather than relying solely on automated pricing. New findings from Oxford Economics, based on surveys of riders and drivers across seven emerging markets—Colombia, Egypt, Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, and Peru—suggest that negotiation can increase trip completion and reduce inefficiencies in on-demand mobility.
The study found that roughly 75% of inDrive trips in these markets involved negotiated fares, with the figure rising to about 80% in parts of Latin America and the Middle East. In Latin America, nearly two-thirds (64%) of both riders and drivers said they complete more trips because the platform allows negotiation.
Smit stressed that mobility marketplaces vary sharply by city and even by neighborhood, making one-size-fits-all pricing less effective in certain contexts. The research frames negotiated pricing as a form of human–algorithm collaboration: algorithms can propose an initial estimate, but riders and drivers can adjust based on real-world conditions such as traffic, local demand spikes, or route complexity.
How AI fits into the product
Artificial intelligence already plays a role in mobility operations, though Smit cautioned against overstating how much it will change the user-facing experience in the near term. He noted that core functions such as routing, map optimization, and estimated time of arrival have benefited from years of machine-learning improvements—well before the current wave of interest driven by large language models.
For inDrive, the near-term value of AI is largely operational: improving matching efficiency, reducing costs, and strengthening reliability behind the scenes. Smit also argued that ride-hailing interfaces are already highly optimized for speed—often requiring only a pickup point, a destination, and a price—leaving limited room for AI to simplify the basic flow further.
What to watch in 2026
inDrive currently operates in 48 countries and is leaning into a broader definition of mobility platforms: not just the number of rides completed, but how deeply a service integrates into daily life. If the company can expand driver supply while maintaining marketplace balance, it expects to capture continued demand growth in emerging markets.
Its 2026 plan combines three themes: scaling ride-hailing where demographic tailwinds are strongest, extending into grocery delivery as a high-frequency adjacent service, and using AI to improve efficiency while preserving the negotiation-based approach that differentiates the platform in many markets.
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