From pioneer to key player: Grab's 10-year milestone in Vietnam

Alejandro Osorio, managing director of Grab Vietnam. Photo: Grab Vietnam

Over the past 10 years, what have been some of the biggest challenges Grab has faced, and how did the company overcome them?

Every day has brought challenges, both in running our business and navigating the marketplace. The most difficult challenge we’ve faced has been pioneering the establishment of digital services in Vietnam.

To put it into perspective, many of the users and partners we work with today didn’t even have a smartphone 10 years ago. Our team would start their day as early as 3/4am, visiting coffee shops where taxi drivers gathered, trying to convince them that investing in a smartphone could transform their lives.

At the same time, we had to persuade users that booking a ride through an app was safer and more convenient than using offline services. While this seems obvious now, it wasn’t back then. There was significant anxiety about transitioning to digital services.

We continue to face similar concerns in different areas of our business. We now operate in 50 cities across Vietnam, but each time we enter a new market, we encounter challenges similar to those we faced in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in the early days. However, we see challenges as opportunities – it’s all about perspective.

Looking back, how has Grab contributed to Vietnam’s digital economy?

I believe we’ve been one of the key accelerants of the digital economy. While we’re not the only player, we’ve certainly been a major contributor. Our innovations have been not only rapid but also highly relevant. Each new service we’ve introduced has been a logical extension of the foundation we had already built with our core offerings.

These expansions have been driven by two factors: the strength of our super app ecosystem and our deep connection with the community. This has allowed us to assess and address the problems we could solve – whether for users or our driver- and merchant-partners.

By combining these factors, we’ve created an increasing number of relevant, daily-use cases that keep consumers coming back to the platform and encourage more driver-partners and merchant-partners to join. I believe our commitment to being hyper-local and hyper-relevant has been critical to our contribution to Vietnam’s digital economy.

Grab has launched numerous programmes aimed at empowering driver- and merchant-partners. How do you measure the success of these initiatives?

Our primary tool for empowering driver-partners has been showcasing the power of technology and building trust, particularly during the early challenges I mentioned. This approach helped get them online, equip them with digital tools, create earning opportunities, and expand into other services, allowing them to make better use of their time throughout the day. That remains central to our mission.

When we reflect on our progress, we focus on personal stories. Just last week, I had lunch with some driver group leaders in Ho Chi Minh City, and one leader was moved to tears as he thanked us for creating jobs – not just for himself but for all the drivers in his group. Thanks to Grab, he was able to put his son through medical school and renovate his house, using services we offer in partnership with banks, such as lending options. Stories like these keep us focused on our mission and grounded in our impact.

Programmes like Grab Academy have been vital in empowering driver-partners by offering online training in customer service, digital skills, and more. To date, 200,000 driver-partners have completed training courses on Grab Academy. We measure success through adoption rates, satisfaction scores, and similar metrics.

Additionally, we’ve partnered with banks and financial institutions to use alternative data on behaviours and driving patterns, so that banks can assess partners to offer financial services. Since launching this service in 2020, the number of partners securing loans from banks has tripled by 2023. These loans help them improve their lives and allow us to see the tangible impact we’re making.

As Vietnam focuses on green growth, how does Grab plan to support this agenda, particularly in sustainable transportation and eco-friendly vehicle transitions?

As we continue to grow, we recognise the crucial role we play in supporting green growth. We approach this through a range of solutions. For example, we offer users the option to offset their carbon footprint by partnering with non-governmental organisations on reforestation projects. When users select this feature in the app, emissions from that trip are offset through these initiatives.

We also focus on leveraging the efficiency of our platform. By batching orders, we reduce the number of kilometres travelled while maximising the number of users served. Our allocation algorithms help minimise unnecessary trips, reducing congestion in cities and lowering carbon emissions. Although less visible, this approach significantly contributes to sustainability by helping reduce vehicle numbers on the road.

On the topic of electric vehicles (EVs), we are seeing gradual adoption among our driver-partners. We take a broader approach, prioritising the technological efficiencies of our platform to drive EV adoption.

Looking ahead, new transportation infrastructure is being developed in major cities, and we see Grab as one of the enablers of this shift. Our goal is to improve ridership and the utilisation of bus terminals, metro lines, and similar infrastructure, helping people travel more efficiently while supporting broader sustainability goals.

What is Grab’s vision for the next decade in Vietnam?

Our vision is to accelerate digital inclusion, ensuring that every Vietnamese can benefit from the digital economy. While we’ve focused on this in the past, we now have the strength and resources to achieve it faster and at a larger scale. Our focus is on three key areas: people, cities, and innovation.

For people, we aim to serve a broader range of individuals in more diverse ways and in more areas, expanding our portfolio to ensure both users and partners benefit from our services. We also seek ways to improve digital literacy for partners and communities through public and private partnerships.

For cities, we want to contribute to inclusive development. We aim to be a driving force behind the rapidly advancing transportation infrastructure, which presents a unique opportunity to deliver significant benefits for our users. Another focus is sustainability, and enhancing the efficiency of the road system.

On the innovation front, we’ve long been an inspiration to competitors and peers because we move quickly while staying attuned to the pulse of daily life. As a result, when we launch something new, it’s something that truly makes sense. While we can’t achieve this alone, the scale we’ve reached with our partners now allows us to accelerate innovation on a much larger scale.