The new ride-hailing players out to break Grab’s hold on Malaysia

Ride-hailing is a “startup’s graveyard,” according to one Kuala Lumpur-based private equity (PE) investor.

Malaysia already has a top player in a sector where “dominance and scale are the two key drivers for profitability”: Grab.

Yet new contenders keep arriving. Estonia-based Bolt made its Kuala Lumpur debut in November 2024, claiming that its entry would “break Grab’s ride-hailing monopoly in Malaysia.”

Photo credit: Bolt

After Bolt’s entry, Hong Kong-based logistics firm Lalamove and Kuala Lumpur-based transit operator Kummute launched their own ride-hailing services in Malaysia.

Despite the rush of new entrants into the sector, Grab’s supremacy is likely to continue unless they can offer something other than just lower prices. How can these upstarts hope to compete against a goliath?

Something different

While there is an abundance of new ride-hailing players, most are struggling to build sustainable businesses.

The PE investor points out that many of these entrants “do not have the financial firepower or the ecosystem” to pose a real challenge to Grab.

See also: Is Grab’s ride-hailing business future-proof?

Grab’s ability to spend on incentives to capture market share aggressively at a time when smartphone adoption was rapidly rising in Malaysia proved to be an advantage, a Kuala Lumpur-based tech veteran observed.

But those days are gone. As smartphone adoption plateaued and VC funding slowed in recent years, it’s now impossible for newcomers to emulate Grab’s strategy.

Still, it may be possible to carve out a niche by offering customers or drivers something different.

For example, InDrive features a bidding system where passengers and drivers can negotiate a fare before a ride, instead of settling for whatever an algorithm proposes.

Operating in 46 countries, the California-headquartered company says it was the second-most downloaded ride-hailing app globally in 2022 and 2023.

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