Following his keynote at MOVE 2025, Andries Smit, SVP of New Verticals, inDrive, talks to Intelligent CIO about the future of transport and technology in countries across LATAM, EMEA and Central Asia – and why investors should be paying closer attention.
Q: MOVE 2025 drew big names in mobility. What were the conversations that mattered most this year?
Andries Smit: There’s a shift happening from innovation for its own sake to innovation with purpose. A lot of the talk at the conference was around electrification. We will continue to see EVs becoming more affordable and their reach extending into emerging markets. China is really leading the charge on this.
inDrive aimed to bring a very practical perspective to the table, focusing on countries that don’t have the infrastructure to adopt EVs on a large scale. Those countries, the emerging markets, account for the majority of the world’s population. At MOVE, I discussed how you can build trust, safety and scalability in regions where infrastructure might still be catching up, but where there is still significant demand for safe and accessible mobility services. That resonated with attendees looking beyond the traditional developed-markets playbook
Q: How does mobility look different in emerging markets – and what lessons could developed markets take from them?
Smit: In emerging markets, we still need to solve the fundamental issue of getting people from A to B affordably, reliably, and safely. That is the key pain point inDrive is addressing across our 48 markets. In doing so, we have acquired tens of millions of active users on our platform, so we are now leveraging this audience and unlocking other urban services for them.
Our focus is on providing a fair price via peer-to-peer price bidding and a greater freedom of choice. After starting with ride-hailing more than a decade ago, we are now moving on to other products, such as delivery, city-to-city transportation and even financial services in some of our geographies. We operate in some of the world’s fastest-growing yet often overlooked and underserved geographies in EMEA, Latin America and Africa.
Developed markets can learn a lot from a bottom-up approach that works best in emerging markets – addressing a pressing pain point and then building on the trust this creates to widen the offering. In Lagos or Lima, innovation starts with the customer.
Q: What makes these markets so attractive for investors and tech companies right now?
Smit: There are lots of things that go into this, but to simplify, it boils down to a combination of demographics, fast digital adoption and market gaps, fueling demand for digital services. For example, nearly 64% of the population in Pakistan is under 30 while in Kazakhstan this cohort accounts for half the country’s population.
Likewise, in Egypt, 61% of the population is under 30.
These large, young populations are quickly coming online in places where basic services like ride-hailing are often lacking. This creates huge demand for mobile-first solutions that address basic daily needs and are able to scale quickly – not just in transport, but in payments, logistics and other services people turn to every day.
At inDrive, we’re expanding into new verticals, building from the foundation of a ride-hailing platform that already operates in 48 countries. Investors are also waking up to the idea that some of the most exciting returns may come from serving the next billion users – not just the wealthiest billion. Developed markets are saturated. BRICS markets are overvalued. The next frontier markets are where the next generation of wealth will be created. Don’t miss this trend!
Q: We’re facing a more cost-conscious world, yet expectations for quality are rising. How do companies adapt to that tension?
Smit: The bar has been raised. People want quality services at a fair price. Given the rapid proliferation of AI, people also want to retain their freedom of choice. That’s where trust, transparency and our peer-to-peer price bidding model come in.
For us, this model, which allows our users and service providers to agree on a fair price directly, is an important differentiator. Riders and drivers agree on a fair price before the trip, without having to worry about opaque surge pricing or dealing with unexpected surprises. That builds loyalty, especially in low-trust environments that characterise the majority of emerging markets. When we enter a new geography, we’re not just competing on cost, we’re offering a better alternative by giving people agency in a transparent way that prioritises fairness.
Q: Looking ahead, what does the future of mobility look like to you?
Smit: Urbanisation will continue. Pressure on cities will continue to rise. Sharing of infrastructure and assets, especially in mobility will increase tenfold. At the same time, mobility is going to be increasingly polycentric. We’ll see more companies expanding beyond their initial core offering to provide different, locally relevant mobility services in one app. We’ll also see more fluid boundaries between ride-hailing, fintech, logistics and delivery services – those boundaries are already blurring. Our goal at inDrive is to develop a super app that reflects the needs and values of each market we serve, not just impose a one-size-fits-all model. That means working closely with local communities and investing in tech that adapts rather than dictates – inDrive is not just about moving people, it’s about enabling progress and improving lives.
