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OPay Suspends Ride-hailing Services Due To Harsh Conditions In Nigeria
OPay suspends ride-hailing services, including ORide, OCar and OExpress, due to harsh conditions in Nigeria.
The firm said it was changing its business focus from rides to other promising areas like the eCommerce space.
OPay has announced the suspension of its ride-hailing services in Nigeria, including ORide, OCar and OExpress, citing the harsh business environments.
In a statement on Thursday, the company said it is pausing some of its operations due to government ban on motorcycles, as well as travel restrictions occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The firm said it was changing its business focus from rides to other promising areas like the eCommerce space.
“We can confirm that some of our business units, including the ride-hailing services, ORide, OCar, as well as our logistics service OExpress, will be put on pause.
This is largely due to the harsh business conditions which have affected many Nigerian companies, including ours, during this COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdown and government ban”.
“Globally, ride-sharing businesses have been heavily impacted by the pandemic. But several months ago, foreseeing this issue, OPay had already taken preemptive steps to restructure our business focus away from rides.
It is worthy to note that this final restructuring has minimal impact on OPay as a whole business”
The decision follows a memo sent by OPay’s investors to the Nigerian team to shut down its operations. The memo also ordered all Chinese expatriate workers to return to China as soon as possible.
According to reports, the Nigerian team have already set up a team to recovery all the ORide motorcycles on the road.