Mar 05: Gojek, Grab, Food delivery in India

1. #ridehailing (old news) Gojek announces tie-up with Singapore biggest cap operator (channelnewasia)

What’s up?

Gojek’s partnership with TransCap will help Gojek’s customers access to TransCap’s fleet of 2954 taxis, increasing the availability of their services.

Why should I know?

• In Singapore, a country with limited market size for ride hailing services, this is a wise step of Gojek to acquire new users more quickly, then they can move to other profitable markets such as food delivery or financial services.
• This news shows us how different the start-up environment is between Singapore and Vietnam. The battle between ride-hailing start-ups and local taxis companies are still on-going for the last few years in our country.

2. #fooddelivery How players are ramping up in India (many source)

What’s up?

I am always wondering how India’s food delivery players can come to profitability in a extremely price-sensitive market (Uber’s got out to curb more cost), and here are what I’ve found

Zooming out

• Amazon offered its service as a part of Amazon Prime
• Swiggy bets a big on cloud kitchen and…everything-delivery
• Zomato (who’ve buy UberEats) delivers food by drone, run cloud kitchen,  installed Zomato gold (Deep discount program for new restaurants, and will manage procurement

!!!My thoughts: I still don’t see the future of this business in India, those solutions do not cut costs that much. And even if they want to jump into financial services such as Grab and Gojek in SEA, the future is still gloomy as financial inclusion in India is in the bottom of the world

3. #tech Gojek and Grab is in merger talk (Dealstreetasia)

What’s up?

Gojek and Grab are reported to hold an exploratory talk to merge with each other last week. Some even said they have kept bi-annual meetings on merging for the last few years.

Why should I know

• Why Gojek declined the rumors and Gojek has not responded yet, it’s still a worth-looking-for news as it’s a track to profitability for those two, and it will lead to a huge change in services that two dedacorns are pridving
•  There are still obstacles if they merge: (1) Complex investors management and (2) It’s illegal if they want to raise price immediately