Grab Holdings Limited (GRAB) Earnings Call Transcript

Wow, thank you very much for that. Well, a very good morning, Singapore. And good morning, all of Southeast Asia. Welcome to GrabX 2025. You can clap. You can cheer. We have no rules this morning, just one, which I will share with you in just a while. Once again, my name is Joakim Gomez, and a big greeting to you if you've flown in. And before I address you, my live audience, I do want to say hello to you, watching us on YouTube. Thank you so much for spending your Tuesday morning with us. You could have been anywhere, but you chose to be with us here today for GrabX 2025. Now ladies and gentlemen, if you're from Singapore, I should be of no stranger to you. If you're not from Singapore, let me just give you a very short introduction about myself. I am a radio DJ with 987, a Singapore hit music station. And I'm also a professional emcee. But I think that's the least important part of my resume this morning. What's most important is, just like you, I am a Grab consumer. I am a heavy Grab consumer. I'm swimming -- I think it's the Grab team cheering. I am swimming in rewards points, and I never thought I'll get to do this publicly to Grab nonetheless. But whoever here made Grab for Business a thing, thank you very much. And here's why. I'm not too sure how you do it around your region, but back then, the painstaking days of every Singaporean office, you had to print out your taxi receipt. You have to do it on a piece of paper. You had to sign it. You had to give it to your boss. Your boss signs it. You have to submit it, and then you wait 2 months for your claims to be processed. With Grab for Business, it has saved me so much time because every single ride I take for business, if it's with my company, I can claim it on the spot. And thank you very much, Grab, for that, for saving time and also that posture in front of a computer. So this is very much what Grab is all about. I think all of us here in this room and to you watching on YouTube as well, we've seen Grab grow from more than just giving you transport. There's Grab Food now, Grab business, Grab this, Grab that. So if I'm bold enough to say, they will never rest on their laurels. They are looking to give you more, and this is why all of you are here this morning today at GrabX. I only have one question to ask of you right now. And I can only hope the answer is a resounding yes. Take the hint. Ladies and gentlemen, all of us here at JW Marriott's ballroom, are you ready for GrabX 2025? Beautiful. I love the energy. Enough from me. Let's get this morning officially started. I think it's only right that the very first person to set the tone and address you, we bring the man up himself, is the Co-Founder and CEO of Grab. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Anthony Tan.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to GrabX, our first-ever product event. We have an exciting lineup of innovations just to show you today. And it's innovations we've created with our user needs right upfront and center. To kick things off, I want to introduce you to someone who embodies what GrabX is about, someone on the front lines who truly understands our partners and making a real difference for them. There's none other than my -- one of our top-performing account managers. Here's a conversation between Mai and a merchant that's going through a pretty tough time. [Presentation]

Mai is helpful, fast and proactive. She gives great advice, and most importantly, she cares. She has so much empathy for our partners. It's no wonder how merchants love her. Now here's the twist. Mai is not human. She's our AI merchant assistant, a clear example of how AI can be applied to create truly game-changing benefits for our users and partners. I am fully committed to this. In fact, last year, we embarked on an ambitious company-wide initiative, our GAI sprint to accelerate all of Grab to embrace GAI because in this world, you either disrupt or be disrupted. So we chose to disrupt ourselves. For 9 weeks, we paused business as usual to immerse ourselves in generative AI. We trained every Grabber, cleared space for innovation and focused on projects that would deliver step-change impact, one of which was the merchant -- the AI merchant assistant, a product that's especially close to my heart because I had the privilege of building this with a team during GAI sprint. Now what's even more important is that while we put AI at the core of how we work and what we build, we must never lose sight for who we are building for. Our philosophy is AI first with heart. Instead of just asking how do you scale 10x with the same resources, we start with a very different question. What are the problems that our communities face that we can solve X times better with AI? That's a common theme you'll see cutting across many of the products and features we're introducing at GrabX today. And we see our AI First with Heart approach has been both crucial to our business and for our mission to uplift the communities we serve in Southeast Asia. AI First with Heart is how we'll push bolder ideas, solve harder problems and serve more people in leaner, faster and more novel ways. The next clip I'm going to play for you underscores this commitment. [Presentation]

This isn't a real recording, but it is something that could happen in rides, even if rare. Now many of you know our story. We started Grab 13 years ago to really help and make mobility rides safe, especially for women and children. We've relentlessly pursued that mission, implementing industry-first solutions like ride tracking and many other safety measures. We've seen great results. In fact, today, 99.99% of all our rides and deliveries are incident free. But even one incident is way too many. We always ask ourselves, can we do more? With the advancements in AI, the answer is absolutely yes. Large language models can now analyze in real time audio and sentiment like the cry for help you just heard. When incidents happen, even if rare, we study each and every one to understand what happened and whether there were any signs of danger. We then use those insights to train our AI models to detect trouble in a car such as a heated argument or tires screeching or any sounds of distress. With the help of AI, we are pushing the boundaries of safety innovation even further. Safety used to be about tracking numbers on the back end or about how many incidences we could have prevented. But now safety is literally about being able to respond to an individual's voice. It's about real people with real voices. When they need help, we can intervene in real time. This is what it means for Grab to be AI First with Heart. But we know we can't and shouldn't even try to do everything alone. We're not building foundational models. But here's the thing. Even the smartest AI models need to be trained with quality data. It needs to know about our region, Southeast Asia. That's where we come in. That's why we are co-creating with world-class AI partners. And I'm very excited to announce today we are deepening our partnership with OpenAI and welcoming Anthropic as our new strategic partner. By working with the 2 of the world's leading AI research organizations, we will push the boundaries of their models, fine-tune them with our unique insights and data insights and include those that we have built over the years by serving millions and millions of users and partners across Southeast Asia every day. Together, we are building frontier AI applications to empower our communities. In fact, we're embracing agentic AI, the next evolution in generative AI, to unlock new possibilities for our driver and merchant partners and help them plan smarter and ultimately earn more. The AI merchant assistant you saw earlier is a great example. It's like giving every merchant, no matter how small, a COO, a CMO, a CFO, even a life coach, 2available on-demand on their fingertips 24/7. Looking ahead, emerging technology will continue to open up new paths even when we can't imagine it today. But a core essence of Grab, what Grab is really about, will always stay the same. We're about driving innovation, even invention that's rooted in solving real user societal problems, problems we uncover by immersing ourselves in ground truths. In the bustle of wet markets, on the back of habal-habal motorbikes, deep into Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, which require multi-modes of transfer just to get there because we know the best products are not built behind screens. They're built by listening. They're built by getting close to the people we serve. This is our core DNA, to solve real problems for real people. And that's what we hope to show you today at GrabX, but not just today, for the many years to come. We appreciate all of you partnering with us on this journey one innovation at a time. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you very much, Mr. Anthony Tan. Now that said, ladies and gentlemen, loads of phones were out. Loads of pictures and videos being taken. Just this friendly reminder, don't forget the hashtag of the day. It's #GrabX. Now that the tone has been set, the bar has been set as well, the next person I'm going to bring up on stage, his team and him as well, responsible for all the many innovations, the breakthroughs and your user experience with Grab. He's going to be guiding you through the purpose of why GrabX is happening this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, could you please welcome Grab's Chief Product Officer, Mr. Philipp Kandal?

Hello, everybody. I'm Philipp, and I really want to thank all of you for being here with us today, both in person as well as for those of you joining us online. Welcome to our first ever GrabX. Like many of you, I have many different roles in my life. During the day, I'm Chief Product Officer at Grab, and I work with our teams to make our user experiences a little bit better each and every day. At home, I'm a husband to my wife, [ Lena ], and we love going on dinner dates as well as exploring all the beautiful corners of Southeast Asia we haven't seen yet. And in my free time, I love mentoring start-ups and help them push the boundaries of innovation. So I think you all get it. We're all juggling multiple roles throughout the day, right? You could be a parent. You could be a teammate or a good friend. In the morning, you're rushing to get your kids to school. Then you need to go to an urgent business meeting. And in the evening, you're just looking for delicious meal that's affordable and within your budget. So our needs change many times, all within the same day. And we truly get it versus the same life we live every day ourselves. And so you might have guessed that the theme for today's GrabX event is For Every You. Thank you. And that's why I'm so excited to introduce you to all the great new features that we've built to enhance our ecosystem and that we've designed to support those many yous. So let's dive in and let's start with the family you. So last week, I was invited to an eat gathering. It was a great honor for me to be invited. And it struck me in Southeast Asia how family is really about the much wider community. It's about your loved ones. It's about your friends, and the people who support you each and every day. And the other thing that struck me is that food is much more than a simple meal. It's a way to show love and care for each other. So now you imagine you're hosting one of these large gatherings at your place. Your family is arriving. But the food is either cold, it's not there yet, or worst of all, it's not coming at all. We know, in those special moments, we can absolutely not let you down. Unfortunately, in the past, that has happened much more than we like. So what happens if it's a very large order, a driver partner shows up at the merchant, and they realize they just simply can't carry it all, and they would cancel an order? So what we need to do is we need to really get good at predicting when something is a large order. So I'm excited to announce our first product today which is made to make gatherings and large group hostings more seamless than ever before. We do that by leveraging generative AI to detect if an order is large. And once we know that an order is large, we know we must handle it differently than the other orders. So let me give you an example how this looks like in practice. So behind me, you can see 2 receipts of orders. Can you tell which ones require 1, 2 or more delivery partners? At first glance, it might look easy to you. But imagine that our system has to make these decisions millions of times every day and across more than 175 million items in our catalog. And the true challenge is we do not know the dimensions, the weight or even how the restaurant is planning to package it all together. Now with generative AI and the basic information that we do have, our system can confidently determine if something is a large order. And as you might have guessed, the shorter receipt was actually the much larger order. And once we've classified it as a large order, our system automatically tries to allocate a car, which has the capacity, or if that's not possible, we split it across 2 or more motorbike delivery partners. All of this is to absolutely make sure that we deliver your order without any hiccups. And we also dispatch both of our drivers in a way that the food arrives roughly at the same time at your place. These improvements are already live across all of Southeast Asia so you can confidently order on GrabFood the next time you host a large gathering at home. The family you is not just about these joyous celebrations and meals. It's also really about the day-to-day and taking care of your loved ones and the logistics and planning involved in that. So we did launch Grab for Families late last year. And we saw a lot of people join Grab because of it. In fact, over 20% of our GrabFamily users are new to Grab and signed up because of it. People have added their spouses, their parents, cousins, friends and even their helpers. They're booking rides, paying for each other, but also, they keep each other safe by sharing their ride details and tracking them. Personally, I'm a power user of this feature and use it with my wife all the time. In fact, 2 weeks ago, it really saved my life. So I've seen during my workday that my wife booked a ride to a hair salon. So in the evening, I could confidently congratulate her on a great new hairstyle and has earned me really good husband points. And at home, I was the hero for a few minutes. But with all those great features, there's one group we haven't been able to add before and serve. So today, I'm excited that teenagers can now, for the first time, be part of Grab for Family. And that's truly a first in Southeast Asia. And our lead Product Manager for Family Account, Bern, will share a little bit more. [Presentation]

Yes. It's really cool. The team worked really, really hard on this. So listening to the story that Bern just told us, we know there's a need for safe, trackable transportation for teenagers across Southeast Asia. And now for the first time, teenagers can onboard to Grab and have their accounts linked to their parents. So you can book a ride for them or even let them book a ride by themselves. Your teenagers will only be picked up by specially vetted drivers, and there's a bunch of additional safety features, which we've developed to protect your teenager. First, there's ride PIN verification. So that ensures that your teenager will always get into the right car. And second, there is also audio protect turn on. It's a safety feature that's exclusive to Grab and has already proven to prevent many incidents from happening. And we're working on the next generation, which Anthony referenced earlier, which uses generative AI to detect any altercations in the car in real time, and it allows us to intervene before anything happens. And most importantly, you can always track your teenager's ride in real time and receive updates from the beginning to the end of the ride. So look out for all of those teen experiences rolling out across all of our markets starting in May. Next, let's switch gears to the solo you, the moments when you're on your own. Imagine this is you. You're rushing a project, and there's nothing to eat at home, and you don't have time to step out to a restaurant to get food for yourself. So you do open the Grab app and you start to browse. But sometimes it's a little bit hard to find a single meal option that's within your budget that hits the minimum order value. And then even if you find something, you start thinking, should you pay the delivery fee for a single item. And after like 10 minutes, you give up frustrated. Being on your own should never be an inconvenience, and it should not limit the options that you have. And let me be very clear. We are going to fix this for you with not just 1 but with 2 innovative solutions. So I'm really excited to introduce Xin Wei, our Head of Business for Deliveries, who's going to walk you through the innovations for the solo you.

Thanks, Philipp. Hi, everyone. My name is Xin Wei, and I lead the Deliveries business here at Grab. Thanks for being here today, and I'm here to share with you 2 new solutions that we have for the solo eater. So on a personal note, I have 2 small children. So I actually really look forward to eating alone. But whether or not you are eating alone out of necessity or by choice, I also know that the really important thing is to feel good about the choices we're making and good about yourself when you eat by yourself. So you want something that's simple but also satisfying. You want it to be delicious but also kind of healthy. And most importantly, it has to fit within your budget. But these seemingly simple meals come with a mental load of scrolling, deciding, calculating. And in reality, you end up putting a bunch of things into your basket. You might delete them. You try a few merchants. And then you give up, and then you make yourself this familiar friend, a bowl of instant noodles. And we really want to solve this for you. So I'm so excited that today, we have finally made it super easy to eat alone with the launch of GrabFood for One. With GrabFood for One, we are working with our merchants to curate and, in many cases, to create special meals for solo eaters. These are single-portion meals, many local favorites in there, and you get them at very affordable all-in prices. So for example, in Singapore, you see a lot of meals in the $6 to $8 range. And in Indonesia, you can get a solo meal for INR 17,000. You find GrabFood for One on your GrabFood homepage in a tile. Just tap on it and browse through a full list of meals available in your location. There's no small order fee, just a small, fixed delivery fee. Choose your meal, and check out in a single click. It's that simple. Now you can continue to power through your project or enjoy some me time, knowing that you have a hot meal on the way and you've got a great deal on it. GrabFood for One is live in all markets this week, so please give it a try. I have one more product to share with you. And this is not about getting a full meal, but it's just about getting a little snack or a pick me up when we are on this long journey that many of you know between lunch and dinner time. And I don't know about you, but sometimes around 3 p.m. in the afternoon, I find myself at my desk. My finger is hovering over the order button. I've got in my basket milk tea, extra pearls, no sugar, less ice and kind of deliberate and decide if I'm willing to do this. And I tell myself, no, you can't do this, not just for craving. And we all work in office buildings. And sometimes I imagine that there must be tens or maybe hundreds of people in the same building or on the same street going through the same internal struggle that I am. And wouldn't it be great if we could find a way to coordinate our orders and save on the delivery fee? Well, we found a way to bring you just that and minus the guilt. So this is the exact idea behind our new product, Shared Saver. With Shared Saver, you see other people's live orders near you. You can join their order, and you can add your item, no matter how small the value, and share their delivery fee. It's kind of like a group order but with a twist that kind of changes the way that we now think about delivery. It's a group order but with strangers or perhaps just friends you haven't met yet. When you fire up the app, you see a carousel here, Shared Saver. Scroll through the options to decide which merchant you want to tag along with. And I guarantee you, there'll probably be a bubble tea merchant somewhere in there. Just make sure to place your order before the timer runs out. Now you might be thinking, how do we even get these orders started in the first place? Well, we are making it possible for anyone to choose to broadcast their order to nearby foodies. You might have to wait a little while longer to get your order, but you get a lower delivery fee if someone joins in. And once you decide to broadcast your order, it shows up here in this carousel. The other way is that Grab uses AI to determine if there are existing orders already in the system that can be turned into Shared Saver orders. Perhaps they are in high-density locations or at direct merchants that prep food really fast. And we will show those orders in this carousel as well. Shared Saver is being rolled out across Singapore as we speak and will hit our other markets very soon. So stay tuned and enjoy the snacks. Now I'll hand it back to Philipp to tell us more about how we make these solutions possible. Thank you.