00:00That's so interesting, right? You just heard Natalie talking about Uber, bringing in new
00:03products, that hurts profitability. Your strategy seems to me to be like more affordable products
00:10for a wider audience base, customer base, but you're doing it in a way that is accretive
00:16to your bottom line. How have you done that? That's right, Dad. We've been on point in terms
00:22of strategy, making our product more affordable, and we really widen the top of the funnel for us.
00:28If you look at the third quarter, we have now 48 monthly transacting users on our platform,
00:34which is another record for us. And we're also seeing more users spending on the platform at
00:40the same time, so that affordability also is pushing the average spend also on our platform
00:45because they're transacting more on the platform. If you look at the number of transactions on our
00:49platform, we grew at 27%, so it was actually growing faster than our GMB also at the same time.
00:54So what we're seeing is a number of things. One is people are engaging on the platform,
00:59but also cross-selling more also. As they're coming in into certain funnels that we have on
01:04the affordable side, they're also trying other products that we have, whether it's the group
01:09order that you just mentioned, whether it's the dine-out features that we have also for them to be able
01:15to go to restaurants. So there's a lot more products that we've actually been monetizing,
01:19and that's producing some of the results that you've seen. If you have a strategy where group
01:23food orders and shared rides are a driver of demand, do you need big volume in order to make
01:31this a profitable exercise for grab? Obviously, scale is important. The more scale that we have,
01:41the more users using the platform, the more we can actually leverage the cost structure of our
01:46business and also scale the big driver base that we have also at the same time. So it does play a
01:52role. And hence, what you've been seeing is that now over a third of our user base, especially in
01:59deliveries now, are coming into what we call more the affordable product stack. And it's a great entry
02:06point with them to use. You're looking at over 25 million monthly transacting users just interacting
02:12in those affordable products, just on the food delivery side of the business. And that's a great
02:17way for us because it enables us to, for those users who are a little bit more price sensitive,
02:22to try the product first, get a taste of it also. They're a little bit more price sensitive on the
02:27delivery fee, and we've managed to be able to lower the delivery fee for them. But they also get to
02:31experience the platform. And once they've experienced the platform, they get to also experience other
02:36products like grocery delivery, which is still a very nascent business for us. It's about 10% of our
02:41deliveries, GMV. And at the same time, also, we're cross-selling them to other products like
02:45Dine Out, for an example, for them to be able to go to restaurants at the same time.
02:50It's interesting that you also offer fintech as well and loans. But I've just got to target the
02:55elephant in the room is that we hear all these growth stories. We see analysts raising their price
02:59target on you, but the shares are down on the day, Peter. And from the conversations you had with
03:04investors and analysts, what was it that perhaps there was a little bit of concern about?
03:08I wouldn't say it's any of a concern. A lot of the investors are really focused on
03:14how we are going to finish the quarter. And I've reiterated them that we're on track to finish a
03:19very strong quarter. If anything, that reflects on the guidance that we've given out. Also,
03:23we've increased the EBITDA guidance now to $490 million to $500 million. And that also shows
03:31that our confidence in terms of how we're exiting the quarter. I've also told them that in terms of
03:36our GMB growth, we're continuing to sustain this growth acceleration in our business today. So
03:42we are looking to finish strong in the quarter. One of the areas that we're focusing also is the
03:47fintech business. We've given out a $1 billion loan outstanding by the end of the year, and we're on
03:53target to hit that also. So all the different parts of the business are on track for us to have
03:58a very strong finish of the year.
03:59What's also on track is early 2026, RoboTaxi, Chinese RoboTaxi company, WeRide. You've been
04:04partnering there. How are you seeing AV as the key area of focus? Just briefly.
04:09Yeah, we're leaning into AV. It was the biggest platform in Southeast Asia. We're leaning into the
04:15various parts of investments that we're making. One is across learning the tech and whether it's the
04:21WeRide partnership that we have in Singapore. We're hoping to have these cars deployed on the
04:25streets in the first quarter to be able to take on public passengers with the safety driver.
04:30And also, we're looking at U.S. technology such as Maymobility. We made an announcement
04:34with partnering with Maymobility also. So we're looking at all the different tech and taking the
04:38best of it and really bringing it to Southeast Asia.
04:41Peter, quickly, you know, across the jurisdictions you operate in, do you recognize one that is a
04:47better regulatory environment to deploy RoboTaxi in?
04:50You know, in all the countries, especially when we're starting in Singapore, because really,
04:57Singapore, when it comes to the government regulations, the standards are very high here.
05:02And a lot of the other Southeast Asian countries tend to look to Singapore as a proxy. So we've
05:08been working very closely with them. And that's around safety, which is really important,
05:12and also the customer adoption of an autonomous vehicle itself. But at the same time,
05:19also, we're leaning in in terms of how we can reskill the existing driver base that we have
05:23here also. So we identify new opportunities for driver base where they become safety drivers,
05:29they become remote drivers, fleet operators, etc., which is really important. So the way we're
05:34approaching AV is working with the government, but also working with the driver community and also
05:39the end user also for them to be able to adopt these new technologies.
05:43I mean, the labor impact of AI is front and center. It's interesting that you're really leaning
05:47into that, Peter. The prioritization of innovation, how much are you able to do that while still
05:52driving the bottom line, because profitability is being asked of you?
05:57Yeah, well, actually, AI is something which is very core to grab itself. It's not something new
06:02also. We've been focusing a lot on AI about four or five years ago. We've developed our own
06:07models actually very early on. We now have over a thousand models in production that we're running
06:12here. And the way we've been operating in the last 18 months since the technology has advanced so much
06:18is really internally. We're also using a lot of AI. Over 98% of our engineers today use some sort of AI
06:24code assist. What also we started to deploy is the products to our customers. Also, we have voice
06:31activation now for the visually impaired, where they can actually just speak to our app and able to order
06:37a food or order a ride, for an example. And also, we've deployed co-pilot equivalent to our driver
06:44base, where they could really rely as on with a really effective pilot to be able to navigate
06:50throughout their day. And also with the merchant, a merchant bot, actually, that we have also
06:54that can interact with our merchants.
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