Economic instability Affecting the Working of Swvl and Careem
Swvl, a commercially successful bus-sharing service has announced on 2nd June 2022 that it will not provide daily ride service within Faisalabad, Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi. And the reason behind this decision is economic downturn.
According to a notification given to users, Swvl will keep providing its city to city and business to business operations. The company further said that it began its operation in July 2019 with the goal of “fixing a big problem that we all confront on daily basis.”
The announcement came after government raised the price of petroleum products to appease the IMF (International Monetary Fund) for an economic rescue. In addition, on the basis of rising food and transportation prices, inflation in May reached an approximately two-and-a-half-year high at 13.76 %. Inflation increased from 13.37 percent YoY (year-on-year) in April to 0.44 percent MoM (month-on-month) rise in May.
Careem has also halted its food delivery service in Pakistan in order to focus on its delivery and ride-hailing businesses. The company stated: We know a huge number of Pakistani population depend on Careem to fulfil their travel needs. “As economic situation change, we remain devoted to provide reliable, safe, and affordable transportation to our customers via ride hailing and the option to order anything through our delivery service.” And we’ve put our food service in Pakistan on hold to focus on our customers’ delivery and ride hailing needs, and we’ll try to resume it when economic situation will improve.
