Rwanda has emerged as the leading African market for electric mobility company, Spiro, deploying more than four times the number of electric motorcycles operating in Nigeria, despite the East African nation’s much smaller population. According to the company’s inaugural Sustainability Report, Spiro had deployed about 22,000 electric motorcycles and over 600 battery swapping stations in Rwanda by the end of 2025, compared with about 5,000 electric motorcycles in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and one of the continent’s largest motorcycle markets.
The development highlights how government policies, infrastructure readiness and investment strategies are shaping the growth of electric mobility across Africa beyond population size and market demand. Rwanda, with a population of about 13 million, has become Spiro’s largest operation among its six African markets, ahead of Uganda with 16,000 motorcycles, Kenya with 14,000, and Togo and Benin with about 8,000 each. Group Chief Executive Officer of Spiro, Anant Badjatya, attributed Rwanda’s lead to early market entry, strong government support and years of infrastructure development.
Speaking with TechCabal, Badjatya explained that Rwanda’s supportive electric mobility policies, including incentives for electric vehicle adoption and coordinated urban planning in Kigali, created an environment that allowed Spiro to expand rapidly after launching operations in 2023. Nigeria, which entered Spiro’s market a year later, has required a different strategy due to its larger size and complexity, with the company focusing on local assembly, battery recycling and industrial capacity alongside motorcycle deployment.
He said Nigeria remains a strategic market with the potential to become one of Spiro’s largest operations, stressing that the country is following its own growth path rather than replicating Rwanda’s model. According to him, the future expansion of electric mobility will depend on a combination of reliable infrastructure, favourable policies, rider economics and strong battery swapping networks. Spiro is currently expanding into other African countries including Cameroon, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as it targets operations in about 20 markets across the continent.