Careem Releases its Customer and Business Trends of 2021

By Eman Hamed

Careem, the region’s leading multi-service platform, releases its 2021 customer and business trends from across its Rides, Intercity Travel, Careem Bike, Food and Grocery Delivery, Careem Express, and Careem Pay services.

The economic recovery boosted the growth of Careem services in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan in 2021. Mobility of People transactions grew by 2.6x compared to December 2020, while Mobility of Things and Mobility of Money grew 2.4x and 2x respectively.

Ride Hailing – The total number of rides completed across Careem’s 13 markets reached 109 million where seven markets recorded more trips than the previous year. The longest trip recorded in all countries in 2021 was a roundtrip between Jubail to Riyadh and covered 1,020 km where the return trip was via Business Limo from Riyadh in April 2021. As for Egypt, the longest trip covered 993 km from Alexandria in northern Egypt to Sharm El Sheikh in Sinai. 

Mudassir Sheikha, CEO and co-Founder at Careem, commented: “This year, we started simplifying the lives of people in more ways than just seamless transportation. More and more customers used Careem for multiple different daily needs, proving that the opportunity to simplify people’s lives with the convenience of one app is huge and we are just at the beginning of our journey.”

Airport Transport – The airports with the most Careem journeys in 2021 were Jeddah (257,000 trips), Karachi (211,000 trips), and Dubai (207,000 trips). 218,000 Customers used Careem’s city-to-city service, which expanded in early 2021. 

Careem Express – Careem’s last mile delivery service for businesses experienced 150% growth in daily deliveries from January to November 2021 with eCommerce growing 250% year-on-year, the fastest growing segment of Careem Express. Careem Egypt also witnessed 60% increase year-on year and is planning to increase by the same percent in 2022. Black Friday week was the peak period with daily deliveries crossing 45,000 per day. With more than 4,000 daily active Captains across the UAE, KSA and Egypt, Careem Express guaranteed instant or same-day delivery to Customers for businesses, enabling Captains to earn consistently even out of peak hours.

Careem Care – In 2021, Careem’s 1,200+ Care agents across ten locations received an average of 40,650 Customer service queries per day, and the most frequently-asked-question on social media in Egypt and across other countries was: ‘How do I become a Captain?’. The Careem Egypt Care team received an average of 5,700 daily queries from both customers and captains and a total of 1.9 million queries for the full year where 8 out of 10 of our customers were happy with Careem Care in 2021. In addition, Careem’s Care agents were supported by 14 chatbots in three languages and five different dialects. 12,000 Covid-related concerns were resolved, including sick pay compensations for Careem Captains. The most unique item lost and recovered was a bag of AED 900,000 cash in the UAE, and in Egypt, wallets and mobile phones were among the lost items, which were returned to their customers through Careem captains.

Careem Rewards Programme – In 2021, Careem Customers globally donated $370,000 towards social causes via the Careem Rewards programme with the highest donations coming from UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The highest value of donation went to the World Food Programme’s Share the Meal campaign. Careem customers in Egypt were able to use their loyalty program points and donate to Egyptian NGOs through the Careem Rewards programme a total amount of EGP 600,000.

Careem Pay registered over 66 million transactions across six core markets in 2021. Careem Captains topped-up their phones 32.6 million times in 2021, amounting to a total of $1.5 billion.

Food & Grocery – Daily food orders in the UAE grew 90% from last year, powered by the addition of 1,016 new restaurants. The ‘laziest’ market was Pakistan, with 1 in every 6 Food orders less than 1 km away. Grocery orders were healthier with most orders coming from the fruits and vegetables category.

Established in July 2012, Careem operates in over 100 cities across 13 countries and has created more than one million income-generating opportunities in the region. Careem became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Uber Technologies, Inc. in January 2020. www.careem.com