Grab and GoTo have been locked in an expensive battle for dominance over the past several years. Grab still counts the city-state of Singapore as its largest market even as it tries to expand in countries including Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy. GoTo is enjoying a leadership position in its home nation of more than 270 million people whose mobile-savvy consumers are shopping on its online-retail platform Tokopedia and ordering rides and food via its Gojek’s app.
The growth potential of Indonesia has helped GoTo outperform Grab, which became a publicly traded company through a merger with Brad Gerstner’s Altimeter Growth Corp. in December. GoTo has lost about 3% since its initial public offering in Jakarta in April, while Grab is down more than 60% since combining with the US blank-cheque company.
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“GoTo’s advantage as a homegrown Indonesian brand and its synergy with Tokopedia may let the country’s biggest tech firm defend food-delivery market share from Grab, the category’s leader in Southeast Asia, and improve profitability,” Nathan Naidu, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said in a July 20 report.
Grab is scheduled to report second-quarter results before US markets open on Thursday, while GoTo is set to release results on Aug 30.
