DUBAI: We’ve probably all made some embarrassing orders on regional ride-hailing and delivery app Careem over the years, but have you ever had a stop sign delivered?
Well, a person in Pakistan certainly has — and the order was just weird enough to be crowned one of the regional ride hailing and delivery app’s “most unexpected items delivered” for 2020.
Careem has shared the details of its quirkiest orders and trips for the year exclusively with Arab News — and it might make you feel a little less guilty about your own ordering habits.
Alongside the case of the mystery stop sign delivery in Pakistan, which was delivered door-to-door between two Careem users for an undisclosed reason, the company’s lost and found has turned up some interesting items over the past 12 months.
While its most common finds were probably exactly what you’d expect — sunglasses, keys and mobile phones — one item that really caught a captain in Dubai off guard was a baby tooth wrapped in a napkin. The explanation provided when reunited with its owner was that it was “for the tooth fairy.”
Careem, which launched in Dubai in 2012 as a ride-hailing service akin to Uber, now offers a food and goods delivery service on its Super App. It operates in 13 countries and 100 cities across the MENA region.
Of the more than 1 million trips conducted in 2020, Careem’s shortest was a 1 km journey in Iraq. Its longest was a 140 km journey in Pakistan, made by a young girl traveling back and forth between Rawalpindi to Islamabad to move house.
The platform’s most popular restaurant was Al Baik, a fast-food chain based in Saudi Arabia, and its most popular order a chicken nuggets meal from Al Baik. Its most popular shop was Lulu Hypermarket in Dubai but, rather mundanely, its most popular item ordered from Lulu a bottle of Al-Marai milk.
Careem UAE General Manager Victor Kiriakos-Saad said that he was proud of the lengths the service’s captains had gone to to “unite customers with goods from across the spectrum throughout the quarantine period.”
“At Careem, we have been inspired by the many stories and acts of kindness within our communities that have been seen throughout 2020,” he said.
