Grab to inject $500 million into Vietnam in next five years

Grab will also align its growth areas with Vietnam’s Socio-economic Development Plan and leverage public-private partnerships (PPPs) to contribute to the government’s economic, social, and environmental targets by 2020 and beyond.

Since its entry to Vietnam in 2014, Grab has become the leading multi-service super app in the country, having established pole position in food delivery and ride-hailing amongst consumers while Moca, Grab’s strategic partner in payments, is amongst the leaders in digital payments. Moca’s total payments volume on the Grab app grew by 150 per cent in the first half of the year with monthly active mobile users growing by more than 70 per cent. GrabFood, Vietnam’s top food delivery platform, saw gross merchandise value in the first half of the year grow by 400 per cent, with average daily orders hitting 300,000. In this period, GrabFood also signed agreements with top-tier restaurants such as Lotteria and others.

To date, Grab has helped hundreds of thousands of driver-partners better their livelihoods, with accumulated earnings of nearly $1 billion and encouraged millions in the country to adopt cashless payments via a strategic partnership with Moca. GrabFood merchants have also seen their incremental business revenue grow by 300 per cent within 2-3 months of joining the platform.

The $500 million investment will be used to launch new services in Vietnam and expand Grab’s transport, food, and payments network in the country while looking for new opportunities in new mobility solutions, fintech, and the wider logistics industry. The investment is reflective of Grab’s commitment to creating greater social and economic benefits for Vietnam through technology.

To solidify Grab’s long-term commitment to Vietnam and its people, Grab announced its "Tech for Good" development roadmap, which is aligned to the government’s key national policy priorities under Vietnam’s Socio-Economic Development Plan 2020.

First, Grab aims to lift communities from poverty. Grab aims to expand the benefits of the digital economy to 63 cities/provinces nationwide and empower millions of Vietnamese people to earn their own living as micro-entrepreneurs, which include driver-partners, delivery-partners, and merchant-partners. Grab will aim to partner with financial institutions to provide financial services to micro-entrepreneurs and small businesses, helping them access credit and insurance products to grow and protect their livelihoods.

Second, the firm aims to build tomorrow’s skilled workforce today. Grab will grow its R&D headcount in Vietnam and invest in training Vietnamese tech talents that can solve the biggest challenges in Southeast Asia using artificial intelligence, Big Data, machine learning, and more. Grab will encourage tech entrepreneurship and support the growth of Vietnam’s tech startup ecosystem through its flagship GrabVentures programme, in line with the government’s national strategy to create 10 technology unicorns by 2030. In addition, Grab will contribute to strengthening the population’s overall digital and financial literacy, in line with the national target of getting 65-70 per cent of the population educated.

Third, Grab will create an environmentally sustainable future. Grab is committed to a shared, seamless, and smart mobility future for Vietnam, including complementing existing public transportation options and shifting users from private vehicle ownership to shared transport modes such as GrabBus, a marketplace for bus travel that will cater to mass-market consumers. Grab aims to work with city governments and policymakers to harness data to make better urban planning decisions that can alleviate problems such as traffic congestion and pollution. Grab will also put sustainability at the centre of its business, for example, targeting to reduce plastic waste for its GrabFood delivery service.

Russell Cohen, head of Regional Operations at Grab, said: “This investment is a reflection of our redoubled commitment to Vietnam. The country’s rapidly developing economy and young, mobile-first population makes it ripe for the adoption of digital services. As we scale our food, parcel delivery, transport, and payments business across the country, we hope to tap into and invest in new opportunities emerging in the fintech, mobility, and logistics space in order to bring about greater value and innovation for our customers and partners.”

Grab today made an open call for partnerships with public and private sector stakeholders who share the same Tech for Good vision to work together and deploy technology to solve real-world problems and challenges that will better Vietnamese people’s day-to-day lives.

Grab will look to establish PPPs with central and city government authorities and contribute to national programmes such as the Smart City project initiated by the Ho Chi Minh City government. Grab’s Tech For Good development roadmap is a living plan that will be adapted to the Vietnamese government’s national priorities as the Socio-economic Development Plan evolves beyond 2020.