UAE Car Rental Platform Selfdrive Expands to Qatar, Bahrain

Consumers in the Middle East will soon have more options when it comes to renting a car.

Dubai-based car rental tech platform Selfdrive is expanding to Qatar on the Persian Gulf in Eastern Arabia and Bahrain, a collection of islands off the eastern coast of Saudi Arabia, Zawya.com reported.

The move comes following the app’s growth. Selfdrive said it expects to acquire as much as 65% of the digital rental market share in those markets with product offerings through its app.

Selfdrive customers in the region have access to more than 5,000 vehicles available for rentals starting from one day to three years, delivered to their home, per the report.

“Our expansion into Bahrain and Qatar is a testament to our growing popularity and success, and an indicator of the changing landscape of the automotive rental market in the region and beyond,” Soham Shah, CEO of Selfdrive, said in a statement.

The company plans to add further new markets in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and is looking at other regions globally, the CEO added. Other plans include a westward expansion into the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States later this year.

The car rental sector was already in turmoil as Uber and Lyft took a bite out of the sector, and the pandemic only exacerbated the challenges.

Two years ago, Hertz Global Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as the pandemic continued to dry up travel and tourism and all but shut down the car-rental business.

Read more: Pandemic Drives Hertz To Declare Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

At the time CEO Paul Stone cited the severity of the COVID-19 impact on the business and the uncertainty of when travel and the economy would rebound.