Grab, backed by Uber Technologies Inc., has slashed thousands of jobs and curbed spending to focus on the bottom line. It reiterated its forecast for slowing annual sales growth of 14% to 17% in a sign of how the once-fast-growing market is maturing.
Grab Holdings Ltd. reported its third consecutive quarterly profit on adjusted basis and boosted its annual forecast, helped by efforts to cut costs as competition in Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing and delivery markets heats up.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were US$62 million ($83.27 million), compared with a loss of US$67 million a year earlier and topping the US$29.7 million analysts predicted. Full-year earnings will be at least US$250 million, the company said, higher than the as much as US$200 million it had predicted previously.
The Singapore-based company is trying to reach sustained profitability after years of spending to grow its market share and fend off competition. Yet Indonesia’s GoTo Group is proving a tough rival, keeping prices low and margins thin for both companies as they battle it out in the Southeast Asian market of hundreds of millions of people.
