Grab expands GrabFood in Vietnam to pursue smart city vision

Grab expands GrabFood beyond Indonesia and Thailand to new markets in Southeast Asia, starting with Vietnam

Grab has recently unveiled its smart city vision of a future of seamless mobility, on-demand food delivery, logistics, cashless payments, and financial services for the people of Southeast Asia—all within one mobile app.

Soon, Vietnamese consumers will be able to book a GrabCar to get to work, pay for their favourite Pho with GrabPay for lunch, zip to a meeting on a GrabBike, deliver gifts to their loved ones through GrabExpress, and order their dinner and eat at the comfort of their home with GrabFood.

Riding on the success of ride-hailing, Grab will make significant technology investments in its platform to bring an expanded range of online consumer services to Vietnam this year. Starting from May 10, consumers in Vietnam will be able to order food from restaurants in their area through the newly beta-launched GrabFood option within the app.

Grab’s current and new driver partners will enjoy additional income and job opportunities from delivering food orders on top of picking up passengers. Merchant partners now have their own online storefront to serve an increasingly online and mobile population by leveraging the fleet of driver partners.

Jerry Lim, country head of Grab Vietnam, said, “GrabFood is the next major step in our move to serve the daily essential needs of consumers. Food delivery is a natural extension of our transport offerings.”

“Each day, millions of people in Southeast Asia rely on ride-hailing services to bring them from place to place, as well as food delivery services to save time from travelling around in congested cities to satisfy their cravings. With our acquisition of UberEats’ operations and the expansion of GrabFood across the region, we are working with local merchant and driver partners to deliver the best of Vietnam’s kitchens to the doorsteps of millions,” he said.

Connecting merchant partners to mobile-first consumers GrabFood was first launched in Jakarta in 2016 and subsequently beta-tested in Bangkok last year. User research with merchant partners in these cities revealed that they have reaped incremental benefits of going online to reach more customers and enjoyed a significant increase in orders through GrabFood, resulting in higher revenue.

GrabFood has proven to be a real revenue driver for merchants in these cities, and Grab is bringing this experience to Vietnam to benefit hundreds of thousands of small businesses and micro-entrepreneurs, especially those with shops or stalls located in more remote and under-served areas with minimal human traffic.

“We are in a position to power the future of smart cities for consumers, because of the interconnectedness of each of our services and how they help each other grow. Transport allows us to expand our GrabFood and Grab Financial services. Our GrabPay mobile wallet will be used for both transport and food, two of the most relevant use cases in Southeast Asia,” Lim added.

“By building a technology platform that serves the most important everyday lifestyle needs of consumers, we are benefitting an entire ecosystem of connected users who are not only passengers and driver partners, but also increasingly agents, merchants, and delivery partners. We can help everyone, particularly micro-entrepreneurs, grow their businesses and serve consumers better with how each of our services are interlinked.”