Roam Launches Kenya’s First Journey-In, Journey-Out Service Heart To Serve 3,500 Electrical Bikes Month-to-month

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There was a startling decline within the gross sales of latest bikes in Kenya, from a peak of 285,203 bikes offered in 2021 to only 68,804 in 2024. On the time, these had been largely ICE bikes. This large drop in gross sales has been attributed to decrease shopper buying energy, which has diminished the each day utilization of boda bodas in Kenya, and consequently additionally diminished the each day unit profitability for bike taxis resulting from greater gas prices in current occasions. Different components embrace greater financing prices on prime of elevated sticker costs for some fashions on the time, resulting from exterior shocks comparable to foreign money devaluation.

In a current replace, one of many main gamers in Kenya’s bike sector, Automobile & Basic stated bike gross sales in Kenya have grown to a median of seven,000 bikes per 30 days in 2025, from a median of 4,600 models per 30 days in 2024. So the market is now beginning to bounce again as gas costs have fallen and stabilized a bit since then. The Kenya Shilling has additionally strengthened to “regular ranges” of round 129 to the greenback from 157 in December 2023.  One other issue driving growing bike gross sales in Kenya is the surge in adoption of electrical bikes as a number of gamers on this house comparable to Arc Journey, Roam, Ampersand, and Spiro ramp up deliveries of their electrical bikes. Some reviews counsel that electrical bike gross sales in Kenya now make up round 30% of month-to-month bike gross sales. We’ll search for official figures and share them as quickly as we’ve them.

Adoption is being pushed by the truth that riders in Kenya’s bike taxi business, famously referred to as boda bodas, are beginning to heat as much as electrical mobility due to decrease whole price of possession related to electrical mobility. This decrease TCO will increase their financial savings every day. Financiers of bikes comparable to M-Kopa, MOGO, and Watu, in addition to conventional banks like KCB Financial institution, are additionally more and more supporting asset financing for the electrical mobility sector.

For instance, Watu’s 2025 financing plans and targets are as follows:

• 4,850 bikes in Kenya, with 2,000 of them being electrical. That’s a large 41% electrical share!
• 27,300 bikes in Uganda, with 3,600 of them being electrical. That’s 13% electrical.

Because the variety of electrical bikes on the roads in Kenya will increase, help companies comparable to service facilities and spare components sellers want to extend at an applicable tempo to serve all these bike riders. To assist make sure that this occurs, one of many leaders in Kenya’s electrical bike sector, Roam, has opened Kenya’s first “ride-in, ride-out” service heart in Nairobi to present riders fast and dependable help whereas maintaining them on the highway and incomes. The Roam – Nairobi Service Heart makes use of a “first experience in” restore system, the place riders will get service as quickly as they arrive, and in addition discover the expertise of watching their bikes being identified and repaired.

The middle serves 10 bikes on the similar time and 150 bikes in a day. The power goals to vastly cut back downtime, which is essential for boda boda riders who depend upon each day income to help their households and servicing loans for his or her bikes. Roam says the ability is simple to entry and gives full help, together with guarantee, repairs, gross sales, and charging stations. The Roam – Nairobi Service Heart will first serve Roam Air riders for now, but it surely is part of Roam’s greater long-term plan for interoperability, the place all electrical bikes in Kenya, regardless of the model, will be capable of get companies and charging below one roof. This can be a crucial level as interoperability will assist catalyze adoption of electrical bikes even additional.

The Nairobi Service Centre is  step one in Roam’s plan to open after-sales retailers in numerous cities and cities throughout Kenya. Roam goals to create a nationwide community to make sure riders in every single place have easy and dependable operations.

Roam says with this new facility, the corporate is exhibiting its dedication not simply to promoting electrical bikes, but in addition to constructing the complete help system that may energy the way forward for clear, dependable transport in Kenya. Habib Lukaya, Roam’s Nation Supervisor – Kenya, stated: “This store is constructed for riders. Each hour a rider spends off the highway is earnings misplaced. By giving quick and dependable service, we’re serving to them save extra money on daily basis whereas additionally making ready for a future the place all electrical bikes can use the identical charging and repair community.”

We have now been overlaying the developments in Kenya’s electrical car sector for over 7 years now — from the early days of some startups changing one or two inside combustion engine bikes in small warehouses, to seeing the sector develop to virtually 50 gamers within the business. It’s tremendous thrilling to see all this progress in lower than a decade. The business has scaled a lot sooner than most individuals thought it might, and all due to the exhausting work and dedication of startups that got down to electrify Kenya’s boda boda sector.

There are over 2 million inside combustion engine bikes in Kenya, and this presents a big addressable marketplace for electrification. The present service and upkeep ecosystem for the tens of millions of ICE ecosystem has helped develop ICE bike gross sales to these ranges as riders are assured they will get fast upkeep companies throughout Kenya and that spare components are in every single place. As gross sales of electrical bikes improve, riders will wish to really feel assured within the service and upkeep ecosystem of electrical bikes as nicely. Because of an enabling setting, the progress in direction of electrification of the bike taxi business has been spectacular in Kenya, rising sooner than most individuals had thought. Now it’s nice to see complimentary efforts within the service across the upkeep and spare components additionally beginning to scale.

Accelerating the adoption of electrical automobiles is nice for Kenya. For instance, a difficulty that has been affecting Kenya’s electrical energy panorama is power curtailment resulting from low uptake of accessible geothermal era capability in the course of the in a single day off peak hours. For the monetary yr that ended on the thirtieth of June 2025, EPRA reviews that power curtailment was diminished by 17.72% from 812.8 GWh curtailed within the earlier yr to 668.7 GWh within the yr ended June 2025. Nonetheless, 668.7 GWh is nearly 5% of the power generated throughout that interval. Many of the power curtailment occurs in a single day at geothermal crops. A very good chunk of this could possibly be higher utilized by way of in a single day charging of electrical automobiles. Kenya’s demand for fossil fuels is now near $500 million per 30 days! That’s an enormous chunk of Kenya’s whole import invoice. At this tempo, in 12 months, Kenya can be spending $6 billion on fossil gas imports!

One other space is reliance on fossil gas imports. The continued reliance on fossil gas imports is among the essential drivers of Kenya’s commerce deficit. That is maybe an ideal time to essentially catalyze the native electrical mobility sector and to begin to considerably cut back gas imports by substituting these imports with regionally generated renewable electrical energy to energy electrical automobiles.

Photos courtesy of Roam