The previous decade has been a chronicle of a multitude of marvels and success stories in the realm of telecommunication and information technology with innumerable milestones achieved heuristically one after another. The most glorious of these developments owe its occurrence to the gigantic ascent and technological advancement in the field of mobile phone technology, its operating systems (Android, iOS, etc.), and the mobile applications that constitute these operating systems.
It won’t be presumptuous of us to put it forward that the exponential technological advancement that we have been witnessing in the last decade to the present day is all by the virtue of mobile applications as it has been the only broad-spectrum medium to put all these advancements and developments at the disposal of both the suppliers and the consumers, digitizing all the dynamics and intrinsic components of the market.
OnDemand apps to be specific are the media through which ease, comfort, convenience, expediency, and luxurious amenities just in a matter of an instance are imparted on the consumers from the service providers in the increasingly expanding digital markets. The story of Grab – A giant multi-billion dollar company coming out of South Asia which now is soaring in the heights of the sky across the borders would prove our presumptions at the right side of all this.
In this article, we will try to understand the success chronicle of Grab that how Grab which initially was just a minuscule transport app with an odd name went through its journey of becoming a super app with multiple amenities and verticals providing to its customers making voluminous profits leaving behind its competitors and engulfing its main contenders to heighten its stature. We will also reflect on the entrepreneurial lessons and morals that we get to ordain from this success marvel.
Grab Holding Inc., is a multi-billion-dollar and multi-service company providing an all-in-one platform encompassing delivery, mobility, financial, and multifarious other services to its consumers in the market having a total worth and capital of around $40 billion. Initially, it was just a minuscule transport or mobility company initiated to function in South Asia.
From Dream to Reality
It was a brainchild of Anthony Tan and Tan Hooi Ling who are co-founders of Grab respectively. The idea was deeply rooted in the mind of Anthony Tan when he was enrolled in Harvard Business School. He had this thought of crafting an innovative taxi service to start in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur to be more specific that was to be safer and reliable than the ordinary mobility or transport services. To instantiate and craft his idea into reality, he got a small grant from Harvard Business School as part of a project and started his mobility or taxi service with the name My Teksi in 2012 in Kuala Lumpur. It was an online taxi service initially which was different than other conventional transport or mobility services with having more safety, reliability, and convenience with affordable economical fares.
From My Teksi to GrabTaxi
In 2012, MyTeksi was named as GrabTaxi and its services were extended beyond Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. After extending its services beyond Kuala Lumpur it produced dividends $10 million in April of 2014 which were increased by another $5 million in the next month making its accumulated profit $25 million in just these two months. From this point, it never stopped or faced any depression in profit-making., After having a little calm summer, it raised its profit to $65 million. In December of the same year, it astonishingly raised its dividends to $250 million having stacks from SoftBank which is one of the leading investors. It raised its dividends to almost $400 million cumulatively in 2014. In August $ 350 was vested in it by DiDi. After this, they added the feature of car-share to it.
From GrabTaxi to Grab Super App
Having adhered to the ideas of more and more growth, it was persistently focusing on seamlessness in safety and reliability both at the rider’s end and the consumers’ end. Having this in their minds the thought members of the company kept extending the app adding more and more features to it relentlessly up until they incorporated multiple services to it and made it a Super App which is referred to as an app having multiple services integrated with each other in a single and stacked platform. They named it Grab and added multiple services to it – Grab Car, Grab Bike, Grab Hitch, Grab Express, GrabChat, and GrabPay extending its services across South East Asia. It got the money to proliferate its services from DiDi, SoftBank, and Honda adding stakes to it as its repute in the market was booming and flourishing to superlative degrees and was acquiring a huge competitive edge in the market for itself leaving a very tiny space for Uber and other of its notable competitors. Its valuation was raised to $750 million in September of 2016 having stakes from SoftBank, DiDi, and Honda. In the Aug. of 2017, it further ballooned up to $2.5 billion having stakes from SoftBank, DiDi, and Toyota.
Merger with Uber: From Contention to Settlement
All over these years, Grab was making a great name for itself by having an outright competitive edge in the market challenging the prevailing competitors of its own kind, the most notable of which is Uber. Uber was flourishing in the European, Transatlantic and American markets but still was facing a huge challenge from Grab as it was sweeping across the South East Asian Market yet it was not bound to be kneeled by Grab as it was having a huge capital behind it regardless of the narrow space left for it. In 2018 a merger took place between Grab and Uber. In exchange for a 28% valuation from Grab it turned over all its operational resources deployed in South East Asia to it. It also had struck the deal of having a redemption right of $2 billion with Grab.
Grab in 2021
This symbiotic association was rewarding for all the stakeholders notably Grab, Uber and SoftBank. After merging with Uber that year its valuation rose to $10 billion. Now in 2021, it has reached up to $40 billion in the stock market which is truly marvelous. This success story staggers our imaginations to incredulity but it’s all there. Grab is now ubiquitous, having extended its arms to New York.
Key Takeaways
We gather the following takeaways from this astonishing and marvelous success story:
· Building on it- Logically
Building products upon products in an organic order of growth having in mind the needs and wants of the consumers.
· Make Momentum
Keep gaining momentum with each service that you are willing to add up over a certain space of time and it will show up with its potential to get a spike on. Keep the innovative ideas about other services that are coming on the thought level there in thought until you don’t get momentum with the already deployed and incorporated service.
· Learn from Others Success
Grab was not the first company to launch all these services but it learned a lot from its competitor’s success by keeping a keen eye on them to prepare itself for its own flight.
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