CAIRO - Competition in Egypt’s ride-hailing and tech-enabled transport market is heating up as rivals from global giant Uber to smaller local firms vie for a slice of the Middle East’s largest market.
The biggest players are Careem and Uber, which had its IPO in May and posted a wider third-quarter loss on Monday as it tries to outspend competitors. The firms still operate separately despite their merger in March. Uber has 90,000 active drivers in Egypt, operates in about half of Egypt’s 27 governorates, and is looking to expand next year to the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh and southern Egypt, its Egypt General Manager, Ahmad Hammouda, told Reuters.
Halan uses motorbikes to deliver food, tuk-tuks for passenger transport and cargo tricycles for goods. It has partnerships with fast food chains including McDonald’s, KFC and Pizza Hut in Egypt and is now targeting smaller restaurants.Launched in June 2011 as a catalogue of menus from restaurants, Elmenus began delivering food via its platform late last year and is due to start using its own delivery vehicles this month, its founder, Amir Allam, told Reuters.
“Size matters, but size isn’t everything,” he said. “Of course, when we get to autonomous vehicles, it’s going to be very interesting. That’s going to change the equation completely.”
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