Ride-hailing market revs up in Egypt

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.

Operators say there is a lot more room for growth. Egypt’s population will soon be swelling to 100 million. Taxis, minibuses, tuk-tuks, and motorbikes shuttle passengers and deliveries through crowded, chaotic streets.

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.

Uber bought Careem for $3.1 billion in March and the deal is expected to close in January. When the deal closes, Careem will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Uber but will continue to operate as an independent brand with independent management.

In this Oct. 7, 2013, file, photo, cars are bumper to bumper on a bridge in Cairo, Egypt. (AP)

Industry experts expect more mergers as start-ups try to gain market share for bus or motorbike services.

Egypt is among Uber’s top 10 markets globally, and is seen as a regional tech hub - start-ups such as digital payments firm Fawry have set up shop in a tech park outside Cairo.

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.

Both Uber and Careem introduced bus services late last year after the founding of local start-up Swvl, which runs buses along fixed routes via an app. Swvl has already expanded into Kenya and Pakistan.

Fast food

Besides buses and passenger vehicles, Uber and Careem motorbikes also compete with Egyptian start-up Halan, which launched in November 2017 and operates in more than 20 Egyptian cities as well as Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.

Tech-enabled food delivery is also expanding rapidly, where Uber Eats competes with Halan, local start-up Elmenus, Spanish start-up Glovo and Otlob. Germany’s Delivery Hero bought Otlob in 2017 and has a stake in Glovo.

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.

It has around 10,000 active drivers, CEO Mounir Nakhla told Reuters.

Launched in June 2011 as a catalog 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.

Glovo plans to invest 5 million euros ($5.54 million) in the country, where it says smartphone use is growing rapidly but just one-quarter of deliveries are ordered online.

“There will come a time when somebody, or a couple of players, will dominate,” said Elmenus’ Allam. “But this is still a long way to go because the market is growing massively.”