Uber Sells its ASEAN Operations to Regional Rival Grab

The world leading Ride-hailing app, Uber announced on 26th March that it agreed to cede its ASEAN business to its the biggest competitor in ASEAN, Grab.

Under this agreement, Grab will acquire Uber’s business in ASEAN, including its food delivery service UberEats.
Meanwhile, Uber will get a 27.5 percent stake of Grab and Uber’s CEO join the Grab’s board of directors.

Less competition, less motivation to improve user experience

Uber has provided promotions often and faced a war of attrition with local competitors all over the world. This deal reduces the regional ride-hailing competition and cuts loss.
Softbank, which has invested in both startups Uber and Grab, has a great advantage in this transaction. On the other hand, users may get a negative impact. Less competition makes Uber (Grab)’s motivation to improve user experience less.

What will this merger cause in Cambodia?

Switch the topic to what this merger causes in Cambodia. Uber announced the merger to users by email. If you are using Uber and have not installed Grab yet, in Cambodia and across Southeast Asia, you have to install Grab by 8 April 2018.

For more details, please check the following excerpt of Uber’s announcement.

“we will be transitioning our services over to the Grab platform by 8 April 2018, so all requests after that date should be made from the Grab app. However, you can still use the Uber app in more than 80 countries around the world.

What you should do:

Download the Grab app here
Create an account
For new Grab riders, apply promo code GRAB4W and take your first Grab ride
For more information on this transition, please visit Uber or Grab.

Thank you, and we look forward to continuing to serve your city with Grab.”