Careem suspend its carpooling service in Pakistan from July 18, 2025, marking the end of a chapter of a decade which helped shape the country’s digital mobility landscape, the CEO of Mudassir Sheikha announced on Wednesday.
In a LinkedIn article, Sheikha said that the decision to leave the market was “incredibly difficult”, motivated by the macroeconomic challenges of Pakistan, the stiffening of competition and the change in global capital of capital.
“This is the end of an emblematic chapter-that built with a goal, grain and a ton of incessant agitation,” he wrote.
Careem, who launched his services in Pakistan in 2015, quickly became a pioneer in carpooling based on applications in the country, creating thousands of jobs and providing digital payment and mobility solutions in the dominant current.
Sheikha recalled the first days of resistance to the idea that women travel with foreigners and the use of smartphones for daily trips – challenges society that has surmounted what he described as his “brilliant and intrepid” Pakistani team.
“They have not only strengthened a service on which millions of Pakistanis relied to move and win, they delivered important public goods: digital infrastructure, confidence, regulation, capacity, confidence-all paved with countless local and global digital companies to take root in Pakistan,” he said.
The decision follows the release of Uber from Pakistan in 2022.
The Pakistan startup ecosystem has been under pressure since 2022 while the financing of the company had dried up, inflation reached a record of 38% before falling to 3.5% and consumption was weakened. Startups such as Airlift, SWVL, Vavacars and the truck have closed or reduced.
Globally, companies like Uber, Lyft and Grab have left non -profitable markets, reduces the objective or extended to adjacent services such as deliveries and payments. The cost increase, regulation and thin margins on emerging markets added to the strain.
Uber still operates in certain parts of the Middle East and North Africa, but fell where profitability remains elusive.
– with an additional reuters input
