inDrive is moving decisively beyond its roots in ride-hailing as it rolls out in-app advertising and expands grocery delivery into new markets, marking a deeper shift toward a super app model designed to unlock fresh revenue streams. Known globally for its bidding-based pricing model, the company is now using its scale in price-sensitive regions to build a broader digital ecosystem that goes beyond transport while reinforcing its core mobility business.
The Mountain View, California–headquartered company has begun introducing advertising across its top twenty markets while scaling grocery delivery operations in Pakistan, only its second grocery market after Kazakhstan. The strategy reflects a wider recalibration across ride-hailing platforms as margins tighten and competition intensifies, especially in emerging economies where affordability remains critical and growth demands diversification.
Advertising plays a central role in that shift. Unlike ride commissions, which fluctuate with driver supply and price sensitivity, ads offer a high-margin revenue stream that scales directly with usage. For inDrive, the appeal lies in its massive user base and the natural attention moments embedded in ride-hailing behavior. Each booked trip creates predictable windows of engagement, from the waiting period before pickup to the time spent en route, giving brands sustained visibility without disrupting the user experience.
At the same time, grocery delivery brings frequency. While users may not hail rides every day, groceries are a recurring need. By adding daily essentials to the app, inDrive increases how often users open it, strengthening retention and creating more inventory for advertising. Together, ads and groceries reduce dependence on transport commissions while helping stabilize revenues across volatile markets.
The company’s original success came from its peer-to-peer negotiation model, which allows riders and drivers to agree on fares directly instead of relying on algorithmic pricing. That approach positioned inDrive as an affordability-first alternative in markets crowded with global platforms such as Uber and local transport options including taxis and autorickshaws. However, as competition intensified, the limits of a single-service model became clear, pushing inDrive to rethink its long-term growth path.
That rethink materialized last year with the announcement of a super app strategy aimed squarely at frontier and emerging markets. Rather than chasing scale through expensive incentives, the company focused on layering higher-frequency services on top of an already engaged mobility audience. Grocery delivery emerged as a natural fit, particularly in regions where retail remains fragmented and quick commerce is gaining traction among urban consumers.
The advertising rollout is already underway across markets such as Mexico, Colombia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Egypt, and Morocco. The expansion follows pilot campaigns conducted in mid-2025 that generated hundreds of millions of impressions and attracted interest from global consumer brands and financial institutions. According to Andries Smit, inDrive’s chief growth business officer, those early tests validated both demand and performance, giving the company confidence to scale the offering.
Initially, inDrive is concentrating on in-app advertising formats. These include placements shown after a ride is booked, during the waiting period, and while passengers are traveling. These moments are particularly valuable because users are attentive and engaged, often with limited distractions. By focusing on digital placements first, the company avoids the operational hurdles associated with physical advertising in emerging markets while capturing faster returns.
In-car and on-vehicle advertising remain part of the longer-term roadmap, but inDrive plans to prioritize in-app formats through at least 2026. Managing physical ads across thousands of vehicles in diverse regulatory environments adds complexity, especially in regions where enforcement and standardization vary widely. Digital placements, by contrast, allow rapid iteration, clearer measurement, and easier scaling across borders.
The advertising push aligns closely with inDrive’s grocery ambitions, particularly in Pakistan. The country has become a focal point for the company’s super app strategy due to a combination of strong mobility usage, rising demand for quick commerce, and a highly fragmented grocery retail landscape. Urban households are increasingly turning to app-based delivery as work patterns change and time becomes scarcer, creating fertile ground for on-demand essentials.
In Pakistan, inDrive is scaling grocery delivery through a partnership with local dark-store operator Krave Mart, in which it invested in December 2024. This collaboration allows inDrive to leverage existing fulfillment infrastructure while concentrating on demand generation and app integration. The approach reduces capital intensity and accelerates market entry compared with building logistics from scratch.
The grocery rollout begins in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city and one of inDrive’s strongest markets. Users there will be able to order daily essentials through the app with delivery times of roughly twenty to thirty minutes. The service is scheduled to expand to Lahore, Islamabad, and Rawalpindi later in the year as supply chains and operational capacity scale alongside Krave Mart.
Product selection is broad, with plans to offer more than 7,500 items covering fresh produce, meat, dairy, snacks, and household goods. To drive adoption, inDrive is introducing free delivery on orders above PKR 499, roughly two US dollars, with no service fees. That pricing mirrors the company’s broader affordability ethos and is designed to encourage habitual use rather than one-off trials.
Pakistan’s importance to inDrive extends beyond groceries. Since entering the market in 2021, the company has seen rapid growth across multiple verticals. Ride volumes in the country rose nearly forty percent year over year in 2025, while deliveries through its courier services increased sixty-seven percent in the first half of the year. Major urban centers such as Karachi, Lahore, and Islamabad show particularly high engagement, reinforcing Pakistan’s role as one of inDrive’s fastest-growing markets globally.
Overall, inDrive now operates ride-hailing services in more than twenty Pakistani cities and offers intercity transport across over two hundred locations. That scale gives the company a large, active user base that can be cross-sold new services without the heavy customer acquisition spending that has burdened many quick-commerce startups.
Capital allocation underscores that confidence. Of the one hundred million dollar multi-year investment program announced in late 2023, the largest share so far has gone into Pakistan. While the company has not disclosed exact figures, Smit said that at least half of the overall commitment has already been deployed, with more investment likely as performance continues to meet expectations.
This aggressive stance contrasts with broader investor sentiment toward Pakistan, which remains cautious due to geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty. Venture funding has been slow to recover, even as signs of renewed activity emerge. Equity funding in the country rose sixty-three percent year over year in 2025, reaching thirty-six point six million dollars across ten rounds, still far below the peaks recorded earlier in the decade.
For inDrive, that disconnect between investor caution and consumer demand represents opportunity. The company has long operated in volatile environments and built systems designed to function despite currency swings, regulatory shifts, and uneven infrastructure. That experience reduces its reliance on favorable capital-market conditions and allows it to invest where others hesitate.
Having an established local presence also gives inDrive leverage when partnering with merchants and service providers. With a large active user base already in place, the platform can help partners scale quickly without expensive marketing campaigns. That advantage becomes especially valuable in markets where external funding is limited and efficiency matters more than blitzscaling.
Globally, scale remains inDrive’s strongest asset. The company now operates in 1,065 cities across 48 countries and has surpassed 360 million app downloads. By company figures, it has been the world’s second most-downloaded mobility app for three consecutive years, trailing only Uber. That reach provides the foundation needed to make advertising and commerce meaningful contributors rather than experimental side projects.
The revenue mix is already shifting. Ride-hailing accounted for about ninety-five percent of inDrive’s revenue just a few years ago. Today, it represents closer to eighty-five percent, even as the core business continues to grow. The change reflects early traction from newer verticals and signals how diversification is beginning to reshape the company’s financial profile.
Looking ahead, inDrive expects advertising to play a larger role over the medium term, particularly as grocery and delivery volumes increase and create more opportunities for contextual promotions. Groceries, courier services, ads, and eventually financial services are all part of the roadmap for the next three to five years as the company expands selectively across priority markets.
Rather than chasing every possible category, inDrive is focusing on services that align with its affordability-first positioning and leverage its existing user behavior. By pairing mobility with high-frequency commerce and scalable advertising, the company is betting that a super app built for emerging markets can deliver sustainable growth without abandoning the principles that fueled its rise.
