Careem's super app lost 122 million dollars in H1 2026

The most revealing thing about this loss is not the number itself but the fact that we can see it at all. For years Careem, the Middle East's flagship super app, kept the economics of its consumer business private. Now, buried in the interim financial statements of its majority owner e&, the Abu Dhabi telecoms group, sits the first detailed public profit-and-loss account for Careem Technologies, the entity housing everything beyond ride-hailing, its food delivery, grocery, payments and other digital services. And what it shows is a business losing money at an accelerating rate right at the moment its owner decided to hand back control. The figures are stark. Careem Technologies generated around 241 million dollars in revenue in the first half of 2026, up 20 percent year on year, which sounds healthy until you read the other line. Its operating loss widened 28 percent to roughly 122 million dollars, or about 20 million dollars a month. The loss, in other words, grew faster than the revenue, which is the opposite of what a maturing business is supposed to do. Reports also note that revenue growth slowed sharply compared with prior periods, so this is not simply a company spending heavily to grow fast. It is a company whose growth is decelerating while its losses accelerate, and that combination is exactly what makes investors nervous about the super-app model. The reason these numbers surfaced now is the real story. e& disclosed them because it reclassified Careem Technologies as a discontinued operation, following an agreement in June 2026 to sell a 12.5 percent stake back to Uber for 100 million dollars. That deal cut e&'s holding from 50.03 percent to 37.53 percent and restored Uber to majority control with 62.47 percent, less than three years after e& bought control in 2023. The timing is pointed. e& is in the middle of a strategic retreat to its core telecoms business under new leadership, shedding side bets, and handing Careem's super app back to Uber fits that pattern of exiting a loss-making venture rather than continuing to fund 20 million dollars of losses a month. The valuation tells its own quiet story, implying an equity value of around 800 million dollars, almost exactly what e& paid to take control in 2023, meaning e& saw effectively no appreciation on its investment. Set against Uber's 3.1 billion dollar purchase of the whole of Careem in 2019, the super app alone at 800 million is a sobering marker of how expectations have been reset. The regional significance is real, because Careem has long been the poster child for MENA's super-app ambitions, the homegrown answer to the everything-app model that flourished in Asia. These first public numbers puncture some of that mythology by showing just how expensive it is to run food delivery, groceries and payments simultaneously across ten countries against deep-pocketed rivals like Talabat, Noon and Jahez. The honest read is that building a super app in the region remains a costly, unproven bet, and even a flagship name is bleeding cash. But there is a more optimistic framing too. Revenue is still growing 20 percent, demand across the verticals is clearly there, and with Uber back in control the business returns to an owner with global scale, operational discipline and every incentive to push it toward profitability rather than fund it as a strategic curiosity. Whether Uber can bend that loss curve where e& could not is the question that will define Careem's next chapter, and for the first time, thanks to these disclosures, everyone can watch it try.