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UAE-based Selfdrive kickstarts its expansion plans with a move to Oman

The e-commerce platform leverages technology and enhances customer experience through artificial intelligence and machine learning

Selfdrive.om, a car rental application, has launched its services in Oman with the aim of expanding its presence beyond the UAE.

Owned by Pinewoods Technology Services, Selfdrive.om is an e-commerce platform that leverages technology to cater to the ever-increasing needs of the modern customer for convenient mobility. The car rental app will offer its users direct access to a wide variety of cars and latest models direct from the dealerships and leasing companies.

Selfdrive.om provides convenience, choice and ease of booking while renting a car. Using the app, which is built on a proprietary tech foundation concept of ‘Search – Select – Pay’, customers can rent cars on demand, which will be delivered at their doorstep.

The company offers absolute flexibility to its users by allowing them to rent cars by the day, week or subscribe by the month, or lease a car up to three years. The app provides a superior automotive experience to its customers with the help of machine learning and artificial intelligence which matches customer profiles with cars of their choice when selecting and renting a car.

Launched in 2017, Selfdrive is the largest car rental tech platform which has crossed 2500 cars on road and serves over 50000 users from 95 different nationalities in the UAE. It offers daily rentals that start from AED 49 per day and monthly rentals that start with AED 999 per month.

“Oman and UAE both experience international connectivity and there is a lot of travel between both the countries. As such, having our presence there is a natural fit because of its strategic location and hence we chose Oman as the first step to our GCC expansion. Moreover, it has robust tourism landscape, which is perfect for our business growth. As the first technology player to have a presence in this market, we are confident that the future looks promising,” said Soham Shah, CEO and Co-Founder of Selfdrive.

“Oman is a great market for the automotive sector, and we see a big potential to be part of that development. In the ever-evolving car rental industry, our novel, tech-driven solution will not only enhance customer experience, but also provide a faster, easier and personalised experience in booking cars at competitive rates, as well as offer access to convenient and secure payment methods while renting a car.”

Selfdrive.om’s network of partners allows customers access to the world’s leading automobile brands such as Nissan, Toyota, Chevrolet, Mitsubishi, Renault, Mazda, Kia, Hyundai, Volkswagen and BMW. It is constantly striving towards adding more brands to its existing portfolio of cars.

Selfdrive currently operates in the UAE and has plans to expand in other GCC countries like Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia by Q1, 2022 followed by UK and Europe by Q2,2022. The app currently has 150K downloads across Android and iOS and works on a zero-subscription fee model. At present, it claims to be the largest in retail fleet network on road with an average accessible fleet of 1000 cars.