It’s official: Grab has announced today that it has already acquired Uber’s operations in Southeast Asia after months of talks, with the deal basically being confirmed yesterday. (see story here)
Previous reports have been accurate in saying that Uber will still have a minority share of 25-30%, as it has also been officially announced that Uber’s stake will be 27.5%. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi will also be joining Grab’s board.
Grab’s plans moving forward extend beyond ride-sharing, and into fintech and food delivery as well. GrabFood is currently available in Indonesia and Thailand, and will shortly be expanding to Singapore and Malaysia, taking the reins from UberEats. Their mobile wallet, GrabPay, which includes services like mobile payments, micro-financing, and insurance, will also be expanding. Both have been announced to arrive in all major SEA countries within the year.
As for Uber drivers, both companies are working to migrate them to Grab. The Uber app, however, will continue to operate for two more weeks. In the Philippines, with only Grab and Uber dominating the ride-sharing space, it’s just a matter of users switching over.
Source: Grab
What does our antitrust commission have to say about this? After all, it satisfy all conditions that require our antitrust approval.
If we are the US, this wouldn’t be allowed, since it effectively create a monopoly, and Uber would be forced to unload some or all their operations to a third party to satisfy their anti trust commissions. But we are not, and so these multinational companies just signs their mergers without regards to local laws.
Let’s just hope that this just entice Go-Jek, Didu Chuxing, or a local startup to enter our ride hailing service and that our local authorities will not block them. So that there will be competition and hopefully, fairer pricing.
More expensive fares, ang laki ng disparity ng prixing ng Grab vs Uber -_-;
So the new apps will call Grabber (Snatcher lang) kidding
paano yan, monopoly na ang Grab?