Asset Tracking Powering Electrification & Mobility in East Africa

Originally published

February 5, 2026

Last Updated

February 11, 2026

Electrification across Africa is often discussed in terms of grids, policy, and long-term infrastructure plans. But in East Africa, electrification is also being driven from the ground up.

Motorbikes, vehicles, and distributed assets are becoming the backbone of mobility, commerce, and access to finance. In countries like Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, boda bodas are not just a mode of transport. They are livelihoods.

As electrification accelerates across the region, these assets increasingly depend on reliable connectivity. Not for convenience, but for accountability, recovery, and trust.

Asset tracking has become a critical enabler of this shift.

Asset Tracking as Economic Infrastructure

For organisations like Watu, asset tracking plays a central role in expanding access to mobility and financing.

By connecting physical vehicles to digital platforms, asset tracking enables:

• Financing for individuals who would otherwise be excluded

• Visibility over assets deployed across wide geographies

• Faster recovery when vehicles are lost or stolen

• Confidence to scale into new regions

This is not abstract IoT. These are physical devices installed on real vehicles, operating every day in heat, dust, vibration, and inconsistent coverage conditions.

When connectivity fails, the model breaks.

Empowering Boda Bodas Through Connectivity

Boda bodas are a defining feature of East African mobility. They support last-mile transport, deliveries, and local commerce. Increasingly, they are also part of the electrification story, with electric motorbikes offering lower operating costs and reduced emissions.

To make this viable at scale, operators need:

• Continuous visibility into vehicle location and usage

• Reliable tracking across urban and rural areas

• The ability to manage thousands of assets remotely

This is where asset tracking and connectivity intersect.

Connectivity enables financing models that depend on trust. Trust that vehicles can be monitored. Trust that assets can be recovered. Trust that systems continue to work even as fleets grow and territories expand.

The Challenge of Operating in East Africa

Deploying connected devices across East Africa brings unique challenges.

• Coverage varies widely between regions

• Network performance can change unexpectedly

• Devices are often deployed for many years without replacement

• Physical access to devices is limited once deployed

Asset tracking devices must operate consistently across borders, networks, and conditions.

This is not a problem solved by a single network or a consumer connectivity model.

It requires resilient, multi-network infrastructure and active control over how connectivity behaves in the field.

Why Resilient, Multi-Network Connectivity Matters

For Watu and similar organisations, connectivity must:

• Fail gracefully when conditions degrade

• Recover automatically without manual intervention

• Remain predictable as fleets scale

• Support long-life devices without frequent reconfiguration

Multi-network connectivity is not about performance optimisation. It is about operational certainty.

When asset tracking underpins financing and livelihoods, there is no margin for opaque connectivity behaviour or unmanaged dependencies.

OV’s Role: Infrastructure That Operates Underneath

OV works with Watu as an infrastructure partner, not a surface-level service provider.

As a direct IoT Mobile Network Operator, OV connects asset tracking devices across East Africa using a true MNO backbone, not a reseller layer.

This matters because it gives customers:

• Direct access to network capabilities

• Greater control over connectivity behaviour

• Transparency across regions and deployments

• The ability to scale without re-architecting

OV operates quietly underneath the application layer, ensuring devices remain connected as conditions change.

OV ONE: Control at Scale

At the centre of this is OV ONE, OV’s in-house connectivity platform.

OV ONE is designed to give customers visibility and control over their connected assets, without introducing unnecessary complexity.

For asset tracking deployments, OV ONE enables:

• Centralised provisioning across regions

• Visibility into device connectivity state

• Control across multiple networks

• Management of long-life device deployments

Because OV ONE is built and owned by OV, it evolves alongside customer needs. There is no dependency on third-party platforms or white-labelled tooling.

This is particularly important in environments where scale, geography, and longevity intersect.

Local Impact Requires Global Infrastructure Thinking

Electrification and mobility initiatives in East Africa may be local in impact, but they require global infrastructure thinking.

Assets move. Fleets expand. Business models evolve.

Connectivity must support that evolution without forcing customers to revisit fundamental design decisions every few years.

By combining global reach with local resilience, OV supports organisations like Watu as they scale responsibly and sustainably.

Tech4All in Practice

At MWC this one of the key themes is Tech4All. This theme focuses on technology that delivers real social and economic outcomes.

Asset tracking and electrification in East Africa are a clear example of this in action.

• Technology enabling access to finance

• Connectivity supporting livelihoods

• Infrastructure operating reliably in challenging environments

This is not about innovation for its own sake. It is about systems that work, day after day, in the real world.

Building With Confidence

Electrification across Africa will continue to accelerate. Asset tracking will remain a foundational enabler of that progress.

The organisations that succeed will be those that build on infrastructure they can trust.

OV exists to support those builders.

By owning the network, the platform, and the technology layer, OV enables customers to scale connected products with clarity, control, and confidence.