Kamal Budhabatti, CEO of Kenya's taxi-hailing service Little Cab, which is backed by telecoms operator Safaricom, says the company has paid out approximately KES 1 billion to driver partners since it began its operations in the country.

As reported by techweez. more than half of that amount (KES 650 million) was accessed by drivers via M-Pesa services, while the rest was remitted to drivers through other channels such as weekly reconciliations.

The e-taxi company made its debut in Kenya just over a year ago to tap into the lucrative modern taxi business, often associated with Uber.

"While the company has insisted that it has no intentions of competing with Uber, at least, for the moment, the two remain close rivals, in addition to other players such as Taxify," reports techweez.

To date, the company says it has delivered over 14 million rides in three cities and houses over 400,000 users with more than 9000 drivers.

In August, Little partnered with Microsoft to enhance the safety of both drivers and customers by integrating a driver online verification feature on its app, using face recognition technology provided by Microsoft Cognitive Face API.

Microsoft Cognitive Face API is part of Microsoft Cognitive Services, which helps ensure the driver using the app matches the account on file.

"Little is one of the most exciting companies in Kenya at the moment and their commitment to security, innovation, and productivity is one of the main reasons why we chose to partner with them," said Kunle Awosika, Small, Medium and Corporate Lead, Microsoft Africa.