Careem has released its yearly trends for 2020, compiled across all its services, products and business areas. With the global customer landscape drastically changing as a result of the pandemic, Careem successfully accelerated the launch of its Super App earlier in the year to ensure it could continue to meet its company promise: Making everyday life simple.
While “everyday life” became tougher in 2020, Careem was there to serve customers with what they needed most. From Careem’s initial rollout of the Super App in April 2020, all Careem services were made available on one platform, offering ride-sharing, intercity travel, food delivery, grocery options, bike-sharing, digital payment options, and its delivery services all in one place.
Careem also marked a 9x increase of customers using multiple services via the Super App, with users in the UAE making an average of 3 transactions a week. Since April and the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic affecting business, Careem made a remarkable recovery across verticals. Movement of people (car/hala taxi/city to city/bike) grew 10x, movement of things (food/shops/delivery) increased by 4x and movement of money (recharge/send credit) doubled in size. Being the first of its kind in the region, today the Careem Super App has 48 million registered users and 2 million Captains, and together they have spent 18,196,061,758 min.
Mudassir Sheikha, CEO and co-founder at Careem comments on the year behind us: “This year has challenged all of us, including Careem; 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’re grateful to have simplified the lives of our customers, thanks to our dedicated Captains at the frontline.”
Although it is about the journey and not the destination, some trips were long and others short, with the shortest trip being 500 meters (during the hot UAE summer) from Jumeirah to Aprons and Hammers and the longest being Meadows DXB to ADNOC Abu Dhabi (Consultant). There were also 147K airport trips and 15K bottles of hand sanitizers distributed across the Careem fleet. The latest in the Careem Super App included the intercity service, meaning customers were able to book ride-hailing from select Emirates to be dropped off in another. Since its launch at the end of August 2020, 6,448 customers have enjoyed a leisurely drive to their desired Emirate, with the most popular route being Abu Dhabi to Dubai. Among us in the UAE, there are the golden few with the lucrative 5-star rating. In 2020, this consisted of over 200.000 Careem customers. For the trusted Captains, there were 10,139 with a 4 and a 5-star rating, showing the users of Careem that they are indeed in safe hands.
As the world was told to stay home, the Careem customers’ needs shifted away from travel to deliveries, Careem saw a spike in usage of the delivery service, with special instructions shared by 13 per cent of users. The Captains knocked on many doors of the “Work From Home Warriors” to help with lunch or to deliver documents and office supplies, in many cases.
The Captains also helped unite customers with goods from across the spectrum throughout the quarantine period. These included everything from pyjamas to an actual stop sign. From returning forgotten smartphones, keys and sunglasses, or sometimes just delivering the daily essentials of milk and bread with Shops, Careem continued to be deep-rooted in its values, bringing people and their communities together.
When it came to Careem deliveries, Careem was able to ensure that 61 per cent arrived early. 2020 also saw the crown for the most popular restaurant go to Mix & Match and the most ordered food was bestowed to the humble (and absolutely delicious) Chicken McNuggets.
In the past year and throughout the pandemic, Careem has stood (socially distanced) by the side of its community. For 2021, and with the launch of remote-working, Careem will continue to recruit amazing talent across the region to further expand and provide amazing Careem offers and services for its Customers. The Careem Captains are at the heart of the business and Careem will continue to support them. Careem thanks everyone for keeping each other safe throughout 2020 and wishes everyone a “simplified” and healthy 2021.
