Zipline to Build 12 New Hubs as Nigeria Becomes Its Biggest African Market

Zipline is moving from isolated drone-delivery pilots to a national logistics infrastructure play in Nigeria. The company plans to build 12 additional distribution centres across the country, expanding its network from three operational hubs to 15 facilities nationwide.

This expansion represents a strategic shift in how the California-headquartered company approaches the African market. Since entering Nigeria in 2022, Zipline has operated in Kaduna, Cross River, and Bayelsa. In these three states, the company serves over 1,300 health facilities and about six million people. The new strategy aims to connect up to 20,000 health facilities and provide access to healthcare commodities for 100 million Nigerians by 2028.

The significance lies in the transition from state-by-state partnerships to a federal-scale framework. Rather than negotiating isolated deployments, Zipline is pursuing a model that allows states to integrate into a national autonomous delivery network. This move targets the country's chronic last-mile delivery gaps by connecting tens of thousands of health facilities to faster access to medicines, vaccines, and essential medical supplies.

For the broader tech ecosystem, this is a move from experimental health-tech to foundational infrastructure. When a company shifts from serving a handful of underserved states to targeting 100 million people, it ceases to be a pilot and begins to function as a utility. Nigeria is becoming one of Zipline’s largest bets on the continent, signaling that the future of African logistics may rely on autonomous, decentralized networks rather than traditional, centralized road-based systems.

The success of this expansion depends on the seamless integration of these 12 new hubs into the existing national health framework.

Watch how the integration between Zipline's autonomous network and Nigeria's Federal Ministry of Health affects the speed of medical supply delivery in non-operational states.