Dubai-based Careem had a splendid year despite the pandemic

The Dubai-based technology company Careem said the number of people using more than one service on it’s Super App has risen about nine-fold since its launch in April.

The Super App, which has approximately 48 million registered users, integrates various offers on a single platform, such as ride hailing, food and grocery delivery, digital payments, bike sharing and intercity travel.

Careem, which recently published its report on the trends of this year, did not reveal the exact number of users, but said UAE users made an average of three transactions a week.

Since April, the height of coronavirus restrictions, the company has witnessed a 10-fold rise in the movement of people through its car, hala taxi, intercity transport and bike rental services. The movement of commodities such as food and grocery deliveries quadrupled, while the flow of money doubled through its recharging and credit-sending service. The company said that more than 60 million transactions were made through its Careem Pay service.

“This year has challenged all of us however, it also provided us with the opportunity to expand our services to better meet the needs of our customers. Whether it was through deliveries of daily essentials and food or helping people move around safely in the most restrictive of times, we are grateful to have simplified the lives of our customers, thanks to our dedicated captains at the front line.”

In August, the Super App started to provide an inter-city service to transport customers between various emirates in the UAE. The service has been used by 6,448 customers since then, with the Abu Dhabi-Dubai route being the most popular.

Careem told its office staff in September that they could work indefinitely from home as it tries to minimize rent and office expenses. Most of its employees across its 36 offices in 14 nations stated that as they worked from home, their productivity had improved.

Reports collected on a monthly basis from March, when lockdown measures took hold around the world, showed that Careem’s staff had developed stronger relationships with peers in other countries while working remotely.

“For 2021 Careem will continue to recruit talent across the region to further expand and provide amazing Careem offers and services for its customers,” the company said.

It said the Super App has 2 million registered captains delivering services and more than 1,200 agents answering about 30,000 customer service queries per day. Careem was bought by US ride-hailing company Uber in a $3.1 billion deal that was concluded in January this year.