SHELL INDONESIA • HONG KONG’S 50 RICHEST

FEBRUARY 2018 • VOLUME 9 ISSUE 2

WWW.FORBESINDONESIA.COM

E-CONOMY 2018
THE RISE OF A
LEI JUN ROBIN LO DAVID SOONG KUSUMO MARTANTO

DIGITAL
XIAOMI J&T EXPRESS SWEET ESCAPE BLIBLI.COM

ECONOMY
RP 50,000
MAX LIU ROBY TAN AND DIATCHE HARAHAP
EMQ JASIN HALIM BJTECH
KIOSON
Contents FEBRUARY 2018

E-CONOMY 2018
24 | ONE-STOP MALL
E-CONOMY: Blibli’s Kusumo Martanto says acquiring Tiket.
28 com was just one step in its expansion plans.

THE DIGITAL BY ARDIAN WIBISONO

MAINSTREAM 28 | AGGRESSIVE VALUE

Lei Jun wants Xiaomi to be the best-selling
smartphone in Indonesia.
BY YESSAR ROSENDAR

30 | SERVING THE UNDERSERVED

Kioson becomes the first tech startup listed on
the IDX.
BY SHINTYA FELICITAS

34 32 | SWEET MEMORIES
David Soong’s Sweet Escape is making high-
36 quality photography accessible.
BY ARDIAN WIBISONO

34 | EXPRESS AMBITION
J&T Express aims to become the country’s top
express courier.
BY ARDIAN WIBISONO

36 | A BOT FOR EVERYONE

24 Diatche Harahap’s BJTech is developing
homegrown chatbots for Indonesia.
BY SHINTYA FELICITAS

38 | SPACE RACE
40 The e-commerce boom has sparked an unlikely
real estate revolution: Urban warehouses are now
gold mines, and Prologis is sitting on
the mother lode.
BY SAMANTHA SHARF

40 | MONEY MOVER
Max Liu’s EMQ comes to Indonesia to grab a

32 slice of the global remittance market.

BY AASTHA SABOO

42 | GUEST COLUMN // Will Ongkowidjaja

Outlook for the E-conomy 2018

44 | DELIVERING THE GOODS

When his top rival bought his largest customer,
Instacart’s Apoorva Mehta cheered. It turns out
he wasn’t crazy.
BY BIZ CARSON

48 | BIG DATA FOR BIG CITIES

Moovit has created the Waze of public transit. Is
this the app that can beat urban congestion?

30
BY ALAN OHNSMAN

2 | FORBES INDONESIA FEBRUARY 2018

 SPECIAL FEATURE E-CONOMY

is. Roughly 20% of new sales can be

traced to these companies and to
e-commerce-related demand from MONEY
MOVER
DHL, UPS and FedEx.
E-commerce is just now large
enough to move the needle for a giant
like Prologis. In addition to pure plays,
traditional retailers are investing
heavily in online shops. E-commerce Max Liu’s EMQ comes to
“is driving a much greater volume Indonesia to grab a slice of the
of demand than you would other-
wise see in a 2%-GDP-growth world,” global remittance market.

A
notes Eric Frankel, an industrial real BY AASTHA SABOO
estate analyst for researcher Green
Street Advisors. Meanwhile, popula-
tion growth and horrid traffic jams in merican Max Liu
major metro areas like Los Angeles had a stellar Wall
and Seattle are making conveniently Street career, working
located warehouses more important in high-profile jobs in
than ever. In the past “you would just firms such as Gold-
look for cheap space; if it was out in man, Citadel
the hinterlands you could still get it and his
to market pretty efficiently,” observes own
Dennis Duffy, a commercial real es- boutique investment firm.
tate consultant at BDO. Now, instead Yet he decided in 2014 to
of demanding a few large warehouses venture out and start an
near key transportation hubs, retailers online remittance firm
want lots of smaller ones near people. called EMQ Inc., based
For Prologis’ next phase, Mogha- in Hong Kong, first fo-
dam is taking a cue from his tech cusing on the roughly
neighbors, collecting data about what 330,000 migrant work-
happens in and around its buildings. ers in Hong Kong to al-
Sensors will calculate how many times low them to send money
a door can rise and fall before break- home, including Indo-
ing. Drones will inspect roofs for dam- nesia, through various
age. With $1.3 trillion of goods flow- platforms.
ing through Prologis facilities every EMQ has a simple
year and more than 800,000 people business model: offer re-
working under Prologis roofs, Mogha- mittance services that al-
dam envisions a database tracking the lows anyone to send money
movement of goods globally, potential- through the app from Hong
ly creating an entirely new business. Kong to Indonesia, Taiwan,
Technology could also knock Pro- the Philippines, and Vietnam.
logis down: if, say, Amazon figures out “Simply send money,” is the
how to get by with smaller warehous- company’s tagline. EMQ’s
es; if electric, driverless trucks make service is either free or at
transportation costs negligible; if 3-D affordable prices.
printing turns us all into mini-manu- “We are trying to
facturers. But for now Prologis looks build a low cost settle-
secure on its last-mile throne. F ment network that by-

40 | FORBES INDONESIA FEBRUARY 2018

 passes other networks,” says Max, whose title is chief loved ones back home. With We Remit, for example,
executive and co-founder. The target market is huge: any 7-11 store in Hong Kong accepts money from cus-
more than $600 billion in remittances is sent worldwide tomers, who then scan a QR code with their phone,
every year. putting the money into their We Remit e-wallet,
However, Max and EMQ faced a big uphill battle to which then can be sent to the Philippines or Indone-
get his startup off the ground. First off, he had to struggle sia. EMQ says the process takes about 10 minutes.
for three years without any revenue just to develop his A more interesting development came in October
network, including finding banks willing to partner with 2017 when EMQ signed a deal with China’s QFPay to
him, regulatory and legal approvals and various other is- allow Chinese visitors in Indonesia to use QFPay for
sues. The banks were naturally reluctant to work with an payments, getting EMQ into the much larger market
unknown startup. “Many banks are skeptical about work- of what is called “merchant settlement”—giving it a
ing with us because they are unsure of whether young role more like a credit card payments processor than
companies like us understand compliance and regula- simple remittance.
tion. So while the process of getting approvals for us was Max remains hard at work extending the EMQ net-
a long-drawn process, at every step we have been able to work to Taiwan, which also has a big migrant commu-
AHMAD ZAMRONI / FORBES INDONESIA

successfully convince each bank,” Max says. nity as well. He’d like to bring his services to the world,
A second issue is the competition. The market for many including big markets such as the U.S., China, Europe
years was dominated by banks, and the two well-known and the Middle East. Closer to Hong Kong, Max says
global brands—Western Union and Moneygram. Yet that
$600 billion plus market has attracted a huge number of
other players, all looking to grab even a small slice of that
enormous pie ( just 1% market share would be $6 billion
revenues). There are now many remittance firms around
“WE PLAN TO EXPAND
the world, including dozens of fintech startups—not to OUR FOOTPRINT
mention remittance being a typical service offered by BEYOND ASIA TO
many banks worldwide. Even in Hong Kong, EMQ
has competition such as Toast, which claims to
NORTH AMERICA AND
make sending money as easy as making toast. The EUROPE.”
big boys are not standing still as well, as Western
Union, Moneygram and online giant PayPal offer Cambodia, Malaysia and India are likely markets
online remittance services. which he hopes EMQ can open soon. “We plan to
Yet today, after a long time building, EMQ expand our footprint beyond Asia to North America
is finally gaining some traction. In the past 12 and Europe, and are building the required infrastruc-
months, Max signed a slew of deals, includ- ture to support remittance,” he says.
ing with China’s giant Tencent, the owner of Max is convinced his partnership model is work-
WeChat, to offer a remittance service called ing (although EMQ does offer its own branded apps
We Remit, which allows money to be sent for remittance). “We have built a strong partner eco-
to Philippines and Indonesia. In the Philip- system of financial institutions, telecommunications
pines, it has partnerships with Union Bank, service providers, messaging platforms and payment
Cebuana (a pawnshop turned financial ser- processors, to offer our customers with immediate ac-
vices company) and Globe Telecom, which cess to thousands of cash pickup options, and to any
has its GCash service for remittances and e- bank account or mobile wallet,” Max says. In typical
wallets. Vietnam’s HD Bank has also come in as a part- startup fashion, Max won’t disclose any financials, ex-
ner. (Most of these third-party vendors charge a fee.) cept to say EMQ is growing at a 30% rate month over
For the moment, most of the transactions are month. To help EMQ grow, Max recently raised $6.5
one way—EMQ can only send money from Hong million in Series A funding from a group of investors
Kong to Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam, that includes the U.S.-Indonesia crossborder firm In-
but these are the countries that supply the tudo Ventures. “With a global remittance business of
bulk of Hong Kong’s migrant workers, more than $600 billion, we are quite upbeat about the
who send money to support their company’s growth,” says Max. F

FEBRUARY 2018 FORBES INDONESIA | 41