Passpod Sets Up "Joint Venture" with Weepay to Penetrate the Philippines Market

Passpod announces joint venture with Philippines' payment company, Weepay. Partnership is Passpod's strategic step to penetrate the country's market.

Still, under the brand Passpod, and to run business in May 2019, this service should reach Philippines outbound traveler potentially reached 4.3 million trips by 2021 according to Mastercard's Future of Outbound Travel in Asia Pacific report (2016-2021).

This is the second regional expansion step for the mobile Wi-Fi devices developer after receiving fresh funding through IPO. Previously, the CEO, Hiro Whardana confirms that they've opened an office in Singapore. Passpod also plans to expand to five countries this year.

"We're very pleased to welcome this joint venture as a collaboration with Weepay which already popular in Philippines' payment industry. It'll facilitate Passpod to penetrate Philippines' outbound travelers market which number keeps having significant increase year by year," he added.

Philippines is the most interesting market for many Indonesian startups because of the similarity. Previously, Gojek has acquired Philippines' payment startup, Coins.ph, although the on demand service operation were stuck by the current transportation authority.

Regarding Philippines' selection as the target expansion, Whardana said, "The internet use for data is high, even higher than Indonesia. In addition, the awareness to travel abroad is also quite high."

– Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian