QuickBus targets intercity commuters with expansion to Nigeria

QuickBus, a Pan-African bus booking platform has expanded into Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa to enable intercity road transportation.

Launched in 2019, QuickBus provides long distance bus tickets in a marketplace, making it easier for users to compare prices and book journeys, and helping bus companies run their businesses more efficiently.

In Nigeria, Statista said Murtala Muhammed International Airport — is the busiest airport for domestic passenger traffic in Nigeria, with 4.25 million passengers – less than 5% of the population, emphasizing the popularity of road travel.

Even though road transportation is the primary means of transportation in Nigeria and most African countries, transport companies are unable to curate essential data points to offer better experience since most of the ticketing process is done manually.

QuickBus is going to solve, by providing booking channels such as USSD, WhatsApp, and Agency Banking. While many of QuickBus' solutions translate into big wins for customers, ignoring the startup's potential to impact the transport business is hard. In Nigeria, the transportation business is tricky, with many transporters closing operations in under three years.

Olumide Akinsola, VP of Growth and Marketing at QuickBus said "our goal is to get Africans moving from City to City by road in a way that's stress-free, efficient, and enjoyable. This can't happen without transport operators moving from their current informal setup to a point where they scale with intelligent business solutions. It's not just a promise; it's the new reality for our customers in Kenya, Angola, Uganda, Zambia, and our other locations".

As part of this expansion, Akinsola stated that "what we’re [QuickBus] is trying to do essentially in Nigeria is position ourselves correctly in the East starting from Aba and Onitsha. So when we launch, we’re going to be launching in Aba and Lagos because you know, Lagos is the state with the largest economic activity".

So far, the pre-series A company has raised about $2 million in the seed rounds over the past 3 years. QuickBus intends to close its series A round to revolutionize road transportation in Africa for the 80, 90% of people who still use road transportation.

Since its launch, the mobility company has served travelers in Kenya, Angola, South Africa, and Uganda, and is now the most popular site for booking buses in Africa.

For the long term, QuickBus intends to create a network of bus operators across Africa, empowering them to do better businesses and also empowering customers to move around now from country to country via bus transportation.