I) GrabFood:

Grab, Vietnam’s fastest-growing on-demand food delivery service, today

announced the launch of GrabFood in 12 new cities/provinces. The new
cities/provinces include Can Tho, Quang Ninh, Hai Phong, Hue (Thua Thien –
Hue), Nha Trang (Khanh Hoa), Vung Tau (Ba Ria – Vung Tau), Binh Duong,
Dong Nai, Da Lat (Lam Dong), Phan Thiet (Binh Thuan), Buon Ma Thuot (Dak
Lak) and Hoi An (Quang Nam). With the expansion, Grabfood now serves 15
cities/provinces, bringing high-quality food delivery service to more Vietnamese
consumers.

Since its official in Vietnam in June 2018, GrabFood has seen tremendous growth
in app usage by consumers, merchants and delivery-partners, becoming the fastest-
growing on-demand food delivery service in Vietnam:

 GrabFood orders increased 25 times over the past seven months.

 GrabFood is HCMC’s #1 food delivery brand. 54% of surveyed consumers
voted GrabFood as their most often used brand among other food delivery
players in HCMC as per the recent report by Kantar.
 GrabFood is the leading food delivery service in terms of user satisfaction,
with an average score of 4.46/5, according to the survey and announcement
of GComm market research company about consumer behaviour towards
food delivery services.

The development of GrabFood not only strengthens Grab’s journey towards

becoming the leading everyday super app that offers consumers the most essential
daily services, but also opens up many opportunities for driver-partners and local
food brands, through a “mutually-beneficial” ecosystem:

 Bringing more convenience to consumers’ daily life: Consumers can

enjoy their favourite foods delivered fresh and with the highest-quality in 20
 minutes on average. With no minimum order value, GrabFood satisfy all
cravings no matter big or small. One of the unique features of GrabFood is
“GrabFood Signatures”, an exclusive food and beverage menu co-created in
partnership with strategic partners, sold only on GrabFood. Examples of
GrabFood Signature menu include ‘Tam bao doan vien’ and ‘Uyen uong
vong nguyet’ from Gong Cha. On average, one in ten consumers order a
GrabFood Signature item every week, bringing added value to consumers
and merchant-partners.
 Increasing earning potential for merchant-partners: As the leading
everyday app, Grab serves one in five Vietnamese consumers every month.
By providing an online platform for culinary brands to reach Grab’s large
consumer base, GrabFood merchant-partners earn up to 300% more in
incremental revenue within 2 to 3 months of being on the platform. As a
result, GrabFood’s merchant base continue to grow rapidly, with 10 times
more merchants on the platform since its official launch in June.
 Creating more income opportunities for driver-partners: According to
Grab’s internal data, GrabBike driver-partners saw a 26% increase in income
from delivering food and parcels.

“We believe that technology can unlock more values for everyone – consumers,
merchants and drivers. Mutually-beneficial ecosystems like GrabFood not only
brings greater convenience to consumers but also increases the earning potential
for merchants and driver-partners. Grab is here for the long-term and is
committed to driving economic growth and development of Vietnam.” said Jerry
Lim, Country Head of Grab in Vietnam.

Delivering the best customer experience

Grab continues to innovate to provide the best experience for customers. All
customers will receive GrabRewards points for every GrabFood order.
GrabRewards points can be used to redeem deals from Grab and its partnering
merchants. Soon, consumers in the 12 provinces will be be able to pay with
GrabPay by Moca, making the GrabFood experience even more seamless and
convenient.

Grab is one of the most frequently used O2O mobile platforms in Southeast Asia,
providing everyday services that matter most to consumers. Today, the Grab app
has been downloaded into over 130 million mobile devices, giving passengers
access to over 8.5 million driver partner, merchant partner and agents. Currently,
Grab offers the widest range of on-demand transport services in the region, in
addition to food and package delivery services across 336 cities in 8 Southeast
Asian countries. Grab’s food delivery service, GrabFood, is the only food delivery
company operating across Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines
and Thailand. Grab Financial increases access to cashless services for millions of
Grab customers across Southeast Asia, and connects the underserved and unbanked
population to financial services.

II) Grab:
On the Rise to Become the Invincible Giant in the Battleground:
Grab’s arrival in Vietnam marked the first of many appearances of what is termed
ride-hailing services. When it first appeared, it introduced GrabTaxi to help
connect passengers with individual car drivers for transportation by contract. In
October of the same year, Grab added GrabBike, which was pretty much the same
as GrabTaxi but for motorbikes.
GrabBike proved to be a success in no time. It was easy to see why; as traditional
motorcycle taxi services have been around forever, informally called xe ôm in
Vietnam. The company spread like wildfire throughout the country in 2015, and
with it came many other app-based motorbike services. One tough competitor was
Uber. Uber entered Vietnam in July 2014 and quickly became commonly
mentioned along with Grab in all of the first discussions about ride-hailing.
After a 4-year long fierce competition, Grab prevailed. In 2018, surrendering to
Grab’s pressure, the technology giant sold all of its Southeast Asian subsidiaries to
Grab. After Uber’s withdrawal, Grab became a monopoly power and quickly acted
accordingly. It ramped up its operations and spending, not only in the ride-hailing
market in Vietnam but also in others as well.

And today’s Grab

These days, Grab is operational in most parts of the country and has proudly
announced that more than 25% of the nearly 100-million population of Vietnam
are using the services of the company, along with 190.000 individual driver
contractors. Grab is consistently present in different sectors ranging from
transportation to food delivery and even banking.
This incredible success is owed partially to Grab’s business model that promoted
spending and subsequently over expenditure until there are positive results. More
specifically, Grab Vietnam suffered huge losses every year from 2014 up to even
now, after Uber’s exit. It’s been able to do this yet still standing strong and
unyieldingly as the number one firm in the ride-hailing market in Vietnam partly
due to persistent and relentless support from GrabTaxi Holdings Pte Ltd. and Grab
Inc.
But this is not so simple. Uber spent a lot too, yet it had to bow out. To see further
why this did not happen in Grab’s situation, we must understand where Grab came
from, and its relationship with the average Vietnamese customers.

How does Grab Capture Its Customers?

Grab entered the country when “ride-hailing” was still a strange concept to most
Vietnamese people, except informally. It was a lucrative market fresh off from the
smartphone boom, which prompted Grab to quickly capitalize on it. App-based
services were still quite new, and Vietnam quickly became the newest
representation of how effective social media and the Internet have taken over
everyday lives by storm, with the speed with which Grab captivated their users.
The aforementioned generous spending also means Grab is more able to churn out
attractive discounts for their rides and services. Drivers are paid sufficiently, and
passengers are also happy due to the convenience that Grab provides them, as well
as the appealing prices. This means people are more encouraged to use the app
even if they’ve never been quite tech-savvy. Cheaper is better in this case, and it is
indeed better.
Particularly, Grab really knows its target audience. Vietnamese are familiar with
the traditional xe ôm, but its unregulated pricing left a lot to be desired. There were
also prominent imbalances with the traditional model whose concentration lies in
the differences in the skills of the drivers and how well they know their ways
around the blocks. Grab stepped in and solved all this, by establishing uniform
regulations for prices and how to conduct each ride.
The disruption Grab brought about
Passengers are no longer reliant on the drivers as much as used to. They are
compensated handsomely for any errors and annoyances suffered when using
traditional services. Grab makes sure to improve trust and safety to the utmost; it
plans to introduce a system that requires drivers to take continuous selfies and
“liveliness checks” which are matched against registration records. This will be
done so as to dissuade drivers who are unregistered from using driver accounts.
In addition, Grab has also built substantial AI capabilities for its messaging system
to promote better and faster communication between passengers and drivers.
Abusive and sexual language is a no-go for Grab. There’s also trip monitoring
technology to make sure that the route is taken as planned out prior, as well as a
procedure that sends a notification to the passenger’s app if there are unplanned
stops during the trip.

Grab also knew its times and environments. In Southeast Asia and Vietnam in
particular, the majority of the population uses cash as payment, something which
Grab allowed its users to do since the start. This is in contrast to Uber, which when
first entered Vietnam, required users to pay via ATM or bank accounts,
consequently deterring more from using their services.

Grab also has healthy partnerships with relatable brands and influencers, KOLs
such as actress Hồng Ánh, singer Hoàng Thùy Linh, blogger Nicky Khánh Ngọc
and many more. Relatable, reliable, and efficient, Grab wins the heart of millions
of Vietnamese with terrific swiftness.
III)