Grab ready to increase investments into Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR: Grab, Southeast Asia’s leading e-hailing company, has made strong investments into the country by the launch of its regional centre of excellence and R&D Centre.
This is expected to create at least 400 new high-value jobs and bring Grab’s total employees in Malaysia to 1,000.
Founded in Malaysia and currently present in 336 cities across 8 countries, Grab Malaysia country head Sean Goh said the company will be increasing its commitment and making significant investments moving forward for its operations in Malaysia.
“Our strong investments in anchoring our Regional Centre of Excellence and latest R&D centre in malaysia is our response to the Malaysian givernment’s call for public-private partnerships to help drive Malaysia’s Industry 4.0 blueprint and digital economy ambitions.
“We are committed to helping Malaysia unlock greater economic gains by creating high-value jobs, nurturing deep tech talents and attracting more Malaysians overseas to return home.
“We have always remembered our roots as Malaysia is where we founded Grab seven years ago with the simple goal of solving the problem of transportation safety. Now that we have grown beyond ride-hailing to become the leading SoutheastAsia’s everyday super app, it is only natural for us to contribute back to the country where we first started,” he told the media after the launch of its new regional centre of excellence in Malaysia today.
Grab has six other R&D centres in Singapore, Beijing, Seatlle, Bangalore, Ho Chi Minh and Jakarta.
There are about 8.5 million micro-entrepreneurs under the Grab network with over 130 million mobile downloads recorded so far in Southeast Asia.
Smartphone penetration is expected to double in the next five eyars in Indonesia, Myanmar, Phillippines while already exceeding 100 per cent penetration in Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.
It is expected that the Southeast Asia’s transport market will reach about US$25 billion and US$500 billion for payments in Asia.
International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Darell Leiking said the government encourages continued collaboration between the public and private sectors inr ealising the action plans set out in both National Policy on Industry 4.0 and the National e-Commerce Strategic Roadmap.
“This is what Malaysia needs to move ahead in our digital economy goals- more Malaysian companies who have done well at the global stage to heed the ministry’s clarion call for quality investments back home to develop the nation by creating high-value jobs and nurturing the next generation of Malaysian entrepreneurs.
“This entails attracting key enabling technologies to create the right digital ecosystem, transforming the manufacturing and services sectors into “agile sectors” and enabling Malaysian entrepreneurs to become “e-commerce ready”,” he said.
Sean said Grab wanted to work closely with the government to develop win-win regulations and policies that allow innovation to thrive and best serve the interests of the larger Malaysian population.
To date, Grab has invested about US$6.8 billion in acquisitions since April 2014 with the biggest one in July 2018 at the amount of US$2.9 billion.
It is expected that the company may be carrying out more acquisitions this year as part of its growth plan.
Grab offers ride-hailing, ride sharing, food delivery service and logistics services through its app in Singapore and neighbouring Southeast Asian nations Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, and Cambodia.
While it originally competed with Uber, Grab’s acquisition of Uber’s Southeast Asian operations in March 2018 has turned it into the only major ride share service in the region.
Meanwhile, the Malaysian e-hailing market is expected to be interesting as Quulo Ventures Sdn Bhd has joined some other e-hailing companies that are operating all over Malaysia to become a new rival in the transportation industry after they launched their new version 2 application in September 2018.
Source: NST
