SINGAPORE (July 10): In its latest move to expand beyond ride-hailing, Grab has launched GrabPlatform, a new service for third-party partners to integrate their offerings with Grab.
This is in line with the company's aim to become "Southeast Asia's everyday app", says CEO and co-founder Anthony Tan at a media briefing today.
GrabPlatform gives third-party partners access to Grab's solutions, including transport, logistics, payments and consumer insights.
The first service to be built into GrabPlatform will be GrabFresh, an on-demand grocery delivery service. GrabFresh is a partner integration with HappyFresh, a Southeast Asian grocery delivery provider. The service will be launched in beta in Jakarta this month. It will be available in Thailand and Malaysia by the end of this year, after which it will be rolled out in other markets.
GrabFresh will offer customers a selection of grocery items from over 50 large supermarket chains and specialty grocery chains. It will tap on GrabExpress drivers and delivery partners to send groceries to customers' homes within an hour, or as pre-arranged.
Grab says it will work with third-party partners who are the "best-in-class" in their respective sectors to grow GrabPlatform. "What we want to offer is that when I pull up the Grab app, I am going to see all the best startups of Southeast Asia and [their services] all can be offered on the Grab app," Tan says at the briefing.
Guillem Segarra, CEO of HappyFresh, says that Grab is the "best possible" partner it could have. Grab's large pool of couriers, for instance, allows GrabFresh to add more delivery slots and improve delivery time. "We believe that the synergy and partnership will allow HappyFresh, together with Grab, to achieve our mission, which is to bring groceries to the millions of families in Southeast Asia," Segarra says.
Beyond integrating their offerings into GrabPlatform, third party partners can also choose to integrate Grab's technology, such as GrabPay, into their own apps or websites.
Grab is revamping its app, with a new home screen to provide single-tap access to payments, navigation to everyday services beyond transport, and a news feed with news, reviews and entertainment. Third-party partners will be able to tap on the news feed to engage with customers.
Grab has also launched a content partnership with Yahoo in Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines. It will subsequently announce other local news partnerships in other markets.
The revamped app will begin to roll out for selected users in Singapore and Indonesia on iOS today, and on Android from July 18. Other countries will have the new user experience from 3Q.
