Gojek to Focus on Vietnam and Singapore Expansion, Selling Its Thailand Branch to AirAsia

Low-cost carrier AirAsia officially acquired Gojek's Thai business as a solid step into the digital business. As part of this agreement, Gojek will receive 4.76% of AirAsia's super app service stake.

As reported by Nikkei Asia, the deal was taken as AirAsia exploring delivery growth in Thailand. Gojek alone wants to shift its regional business focus to Vietnam and Singapore.

According to AirAsia's disclosure quoted by Nikkei, AirAsia's super app business is worth $1 billion (around 14 trillion Rupiah), while Thailand's Gojek is worth $50 million (around 700 billion Rupiah).

AirAsia's CEO, Tony Fernandes assessed that Gojek's business in Thailand is well established and can accelerate the company's efforts to become a super app challenger in the Southeast Asian region.

"Gojek's services in Thailand will operate until the end of July, while our platform will start operating in August. We ensure that there will be no redundancy from the transition of these two businesses," Tony said.

Meanwhile, Gojek's CEO, Kevin Aluwi said that his action to discharge the ride-hailing business in Thailand was a strategic step to reshape its regional business after the merger with Tokopedia to GoTo. He said, Gojek is unable to fully commit to the resources there.

Kevin thought that the business divestment in Thailand would allow Gojek to lead the market in Vietnam and Singapore by increasing its investment portion. He said that his team had been exploring this agreement since two months ago.

"After considering the product development and our team, we decided to prioritize investment in Vietnam and Singapore considering the scale of Gojek's business in these two countries. We believe we can find the right partner with the resources we have. We remain fully committed to growing Gojek's market outside Indonesia," he said.

In this virtually announced deal, both Tony and Kevin mentioned the possibility of a potential joint partnership outside of Thailand, but provide no further details.

 

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A new chapter for super app competition in Southeast Asia

Previously, Tony had stated his intention to compete with Gojek and Grab in the Southeast Asia region through AirAsia Digital or this super app.

AirAsia's digital services are currently available in Malaysia, consisting of food delivery, grocery, farm goods, and beauty. As a form of expansion, rather than building from scratch, AirAsia acquired Gojek's existing business which was considered to be well established in Thailand.

In the context of international business, GoTo is quite behind compared to its competitors. Tokopedia is only available in Indonesia, while Gojek's operation stays in three regional countries, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore.

In comparison, Grab is available in eight countries and Sea Group (Shopee's parent) has operations in six Southeast Asian countries. Sea Group even operates in Taiwan and four other countries in South America.

Quoting Momentum Works' research, Gojek's market share in Thailand is far behind Grab in 2020. GrabFood controls 50% of food delivery share in Thailand or worth $2.8 billion, followed by FoodPanda (23%), and LINE MAN (20%). GoFood only earned a 7% share of food delivery there.

The super app market in Thailand is also entering a very competitive phase with the involvement of local conglomerates in this business. Retail giant Central Group injected a $200 million investment into its Thai subsidiary Grab in 2019. While Thailand's largest conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group entered the business through its telecommunications subsidiary, TrueID.

–Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian