Since dominating the ride-hailing industry in March 2018, GrabTaxi Holdings Pte Ltd (Grab) has seen a rapid increase of sales. This year, this increment will spike as Japan’s SoftBank agreed to finance US$1.5bil for Grab to invest in the Indonesian market.
With new funds, the total financing secured by Singapore-headquartered Grab over the past 12 months will be more than US$4.5bil.
Besides ride-hailing services, Grab said it is expanding its financial services and food, and parcel delivery businesses. It is also diversifying into on-demand video, digital healthcare, insurance, and hotel bookings.
“This investment will help the company explore exciting new opportunities across on-demand mobility, delivery and financial services as it continues to grow its offline-to-online platform across Southeast Asia,” said SoftBank Investment Advisers partner David Thevenon in a statement.
Such a decision to further expand in Indonesia might be because of Grab’s Indonesian market revenue more than doubling in 2018.
Another reason might be the recent entry of Go-Jek, an Indonesian-based regional business rival that recently launched services in Singapore.
TISG has reached out to Grab for more comments.