Grab blows its own horn, but with good reason

By Digital News Asia July 15, 2016

Claims 17mil app downloads and 320K drivers in 30 cities across SEA
Indonesia now its largest market by completed rides across all platforms

Grab blows its own horn, but with good reason

SOUTH-East Asian ride-hailing startup Grab – formerly GrabTaxi, and MyTeksi before that – said it has seen “tremendous growth” since its rebranding exercise in January, with Indonesia figuring prominently.

In a statement, it released a set of figures – mostly in relative terms, without disclosing actual numbers – that it said makes it the region’s leading ride-hailing platform.

For example, it GrabCar and GrabBike services in Indonesia have each grown by more than 250 times, and today, private cars and bikes comprise the vast majority of its overall business in the republic, which includes its delivery service and flagship taxi-hailing business.

The Malaysian-founded and Singapore-headquartered startup also said its “strong machine learning and data analytics capabilities have fuelled significant growth and have enabled greater efficiency over time.”

For example, GrabBike has grown 300% in the year to date in Indonesia, while bike subsidies per completed ride was reduced by 50%, which it argued highlights its “strong user engagement” and the “stickiness of its multi-service platform.”

More than one in four of Grab’s Indonesia monthly active users use more than one Grab service, it added.

In fact, Indonesia has become Grab’s largest market by completed rides across all platforms.

Grab said it has primarily focused on the greater Jakarta market, which is home to more than 30 million people, where it offers bikes, private cars and taxi-hailing, and expects to expand the multi-service platform into eight more megacities outside of Jakarta, which have a total population of 38 million.

Grab now claims to offer the widest range of on-demand services in the most markets in South-East Asia, with more than 17 million app downloads and 320,000 drivers in 30 cities across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam (click infographic below to enlarge).