After 30 years in operation, Tracker is synonymous with vehicle recovery, and according to CEO Dillan Fernando, the name is a verb that is achieving the same level of ubiquity in South Africa as Hoover.
However, Tracker has progressed beyond only recovering vehicles.
Speaking to ITWeb TV, Fernando talks about recovery of assets, which, in addition to tracking vehicles – for various reasons – can also include monitoring people and even pets for safety and welfare.
He says Tracker has gone from its roots as a pure tracking company, to a technology company. To back that up, he says that with over a million customers (both business and private) it is now producing 200 million data points per day, and the only way to stay on top of that is with analytics and AI.
“AI is used within our platforms obviously because there’s so much data. The ability to extract the right data at the right time and quickly is critically important to us.”
Tracker doesn’t just keep that data for its own uses; fleet customers can also access data that has been run through its analytics platforms.
“The analytics part of the conversation is not just about giving you [the customer] data, it's interpreting the data so you can functionally use it.”
He says for its fleet customers, this can support route optimisation and monitoring driving behaviours. In addition, video footage from in-vehicle cameras can be used to support insurance cases.
“The devices that we provide to the B2B space are not simply about checking on the driver. There are other things – about optimising business, reducing costs and making sure you're doing the right things at the right time.”
A partnership with telematics company Geotab, announced in June, enables Tracker to also provide proactive maintenance updates.
Recent research from Cars.co.za found that Chinese vehicles now account for approximately 22% of the South African vehicle market and their sales have grown 72% year-on-year in 2026.
On the growth of these vehicles in the market, Fernando says the company is talking and partnering with “a lot of the Chinese manufacturers”.
Beyond the vehicle, a recent development has been the introduction of Sayf, a family (including pets) location and personal safety app that enables emergency medical and armed response on a monthly subscription plan.
In terms of future plans, Fernando says areas for possible expansion include “anything with transportation” and lists logistics, agriculture and steel as primary focuses over the next few years. Keeping his plans close to his chest, he also says, “there are other technology businesses we could be investigating and looking at going forward”, and outlines that further expansion into Africa could be on the horizon.
“Our expansion plan is to look at our business holistically. Tracker will always be our baseline; we will always come and recover you, your assets, your pets, your children. I think how Tracker will change over the next few years is we are already very technology-focused; the improvement of technology will help with the conversation.”
Share
