GRAB

[weijian]

Ride-hailing is an inherently poor business (zero/small differentiation between platforms; poor value-add by most platforms, including Grab (ie they extract much more value than they provide, IMHO); margins are vulnerable to competition and future regulations). And that is their most profitable business arm.

I would like to believe that Ride-hailing is pretty mature in a sense for now. The next evolution are robo taxis but I would think it is a tad too far for now.

From what Grab Super app is trying to do, there is a little bit of DoorDash (ghost kitchens) and Pinduoduo (Grab supermarket direct from farm to consumer) as well - in addition to all the existing well known services we already know (GrabPay/ GrabMart/ delivery/BNPL stuff). This is probably where the "1+1 is not equal to 2" magic that Grab supporters/owners alike would hope it will be able to generate.

Unfortunately, there is severe (and more importantly, well funded) competition in each of these segments.

But then again, I suspect each of these businesses can't be analyzed separately (some of them are loss leaders by design and may be used as a customer acquisition tool) but needs to be combined together as a whole. And when it is combined, it is not very clear where the golden goose is hiding (for now). Then again, if everything is so clear, then it wouldn't be equity investing.