Singapore-based tech firm Grab Holdings has boosted its revenue guidance for fiscal year 2024, encouraged by stronger-than-expected expansion in food delivery and ride-hailing businesses which are likely to receive higher demand during the holiday season. This is due to the fact that such demand is expected to be heightened during the holiday season. Consequently, the announcement on November 11 causes Grab’s US-listed shares more than 10% boost.
The company projects its revenue for 2024 at $2.76 billion to $2.78 billion, surging from its earlier projection of $2.70 billion to $2.75 billion. The surge can be seen more as an optimistic projection on the core services of Grab amid a post-pandemic lull that surrounded its food delivery arm. As consumers continue to recover and spend, one senses an economic slowdown healing in Grab’s economic environment; it has been the victim of increased demand on the company’s services, as Chief Executive Anthony Tan would describe it.
“We continue to be bullish about the long-term growth prospects of Southeast Asia and are actively working to capture the strong user demand in the region,” Tan said.
Apart from the expansion of its food delivery business, Grab is tweaking its core ride-hailing service to provide cheaper options to woo price-conscious customers, while promoting higher-end services to generate more profitable leads. According to Grab’s CFO, Peter Oey, premium ride options yield margins that are 1.2 times greater than regular rides.
For the March quarter 2024, Grab announced revenues of $716 million, which went over the analysts’ estimate of $700.8 million. Besides, Grab reported a 22 percent increase in transactions and disclosed that subscribers spent almost four times the amounts that non-subscribers had.
This follows with an upbeat trend as Grab boosts its core profit forecast for the year to a range of $308 million to $313 million from the earlier estimated range of $250 million to $270 million.
These solid results reinforce the resilience and strategic adjustments that Grab has in place as it continues to outlast Southeast Asia’s fast-evolving tech landscape.
