Careem can enable services to reach 100 cities in Middle East in one go, says CEO – The National

Careem can enable services to reach 100 cities in Middle East in one go, says CEO – The National

Dubai's Careem is addressing problematic market fragmentation in the Middle East and North Africa with its fast-growing 'super app', its co-founder and chief executive has said.

Mudassir Sheikha told The National's Business Extra podcast: "We have built a presence in almost 100 cities in the region, where if you want to come and build your services on the app, then we can give you the ability to light up the remaining 99 cities at the flick of a switch versus having to painfully go into every city and enable your service."

Super apps bundle single apps' functionalities on to one platform for many different services. China pioneered this kind of multipurpose app, with Chinese sending texts, managing digital payments, shopping and playing games and socialising all from one place, usually WeChat, which has more than 1.2 billion users.