Covid-19 a sledgehammer strike, recession just like a pinch, says Chope CEO

What doesn’t break you makes you stronger. For Singapore-based restaurant management platform Chope, the breaking point was the Covid-19 pandemic. But surviving it has made the company less afraid of facing other headwinds, such as the onset of a recession.

“People spending a little bit less at restaurants, and restaurants being a little bit harder hit [due to the recession], compared to being completely shut down for two and a half years – give me a recession anytime,” Arrif Ziaudeen, founder and CEO of Chope, tells Tech in Asia.

He compares the impact of Covid-19 on the hospitality industry as a sledgehammer to the head, while a recession is just a pinch.

Chope Group CEO Arrif Ziaudeen / Photo credit: Chope

Today, the restaurant industry seems to be in better shape than other consumer-facing sectors. Restaurant reservations in Singapore have seen a spike since March after the government began easing restrictions.

Chope says that it has recorded a 32% growth in its gross revenue in H1 2022 compared to the same period a year ago. It has also witnessed a 70% year-on-year rise in its monthly active users – from 1 million in Q2 2021 to 1.7 million in Q2 2022.

“The second quarter of this year is the best quarter that Chope has ever had. And this is compared to the pre-Covid-19 period,” says Ziaudeen. However, he didn’t divulge financial details on the matter.

According to the founder, the F&B industry was still battling the wave of shutdowns and restrictions across several markets until as recently as the first quarter of this year. “Even in Singapore at Chinese New Year, we were still restricted to groups of five [diners].”

In 2021, Chope saw a slight recovery in its revenue, posting an 8.7% bump to S$23.7 million (US$16.4 million). This is from a 44% decline in revenue in 2020.

That said, this is far from the 2x revenue growth it saw in 2018 and the company’s over 60% increase in 2019.

Chope’s operating loss in 2021 also swelled by over 70% to US$6.4 million. This comes a year after the company managed to shrink its loss by over 2.5x to US$3.8 million in 2020.

This growth in losses, Ziaudeen says, was due to the investment Chope put into its business at the end of 2021 in anticipation of a post-Covid-19 comeback.

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