Uber is planning to expand its presence in the Middle East and North Africa with an investment of $250m.
The company’s services would begin in Saudi Arabian and Egyptian cities and enter Pakistan with first service in Lahore.
The investment will be made in expanding the workforce in the region and enhancing Uber’s mobile app.
The taxi hailing service entered the Middle East two years ago and now operates in Bahrain, Dubai, Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Morocco, and the UAE with apps available in local languages including Hebrew, Turkish, and Arabic.
Uber Middle East and North Africa head Jambu Palaniappan was quoted by Bloomberg as saying:"We’re really bullish on where we’re headed here.
"Succeeding here is a really important stake for our global business."
According to Uber, Cairo has been its fastest growing city in the EMEA region with number of drivers increasing six-fold since May.
Palaniappan said that around 40% of its drivers in Egypt were unemployed before joining the service.
Female Uber drivers are common in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon but in Saudi Arabia, women make around 70% of passengers as the country does not allow them to drive.
Some of the regions have been going through political turmoil but the company said that it is meeting the challenges in different ways by joining forces with NGOs.
As Uber drivers have faced sexual harassment charges in numerous occasions, the company has teamed up with Egyptian anti-sexual harassment service Harassmap to train drivers to find out, prevent and take positive action against inappropriate behaviour.
