Female-only ride-hailing app to compete with Uber, Careem in Cairo
Fyonka, Egypt's first all-female ride hailing service, is providing money-earning opportunities and transport for women.
The streets of Cairo should soon have a new ride-hailing service to rival Uber and Careem, but with a few twists. The new entrant is based locally, will serve only women and hire female drivers only. Fyonka (Ribbon) is scheduled to officially launch Dec. 28.
Since the company's soft launch of its app on Nov. 15, it has logged more than 400 rides. “We aim at providing a safe means of transportation for girls and women whether they are clients or drivers,” Fyonka co-founder Abdullah Hussein told Al-Monitor.
Through market research, the Fyonka team found that there are 400,000 drivers working for the US-based Uber and Dubai-based Careem, which began operating in Egypt in 2014. Among them only 10,000 are women.
“There is an issue of the lack of opportunity for women in this profession,” Hussein said. He hopes that Fyonka will reduce the gender gap among ride-hailing drivers overall by attracting more women to the industry.
