Grab and Go-Jek take their battle to Indonesia’s small towns

Boys on a beach. Photo credit: RumahKaia.

Ride-hailing services have visibly impacted Indonesia’s biggest cities since launching just over two years ago. The signature green helmets of Go-Jek’s and Grab’s motorbike drivers are everywhere.

This year, the battle between the two startups shifted gears. It’s also advancing deeper into the countryside, in a bid to be there first when consumers discover the convenience of on-demand services and mobile payments. Both poured significant resources into building digital wallets and payments features.

What do the companies have in their arsenal? Here’s a comparison.

Funding and alliances

Grab and Go-Jek both scored massive funding rounds this year and have forged alliances with powerful companies abroad.

The Malaysian-born Grab raised at least US$2 billion in a round led by Chinese ride-hailing firm Didi Chuxing and Japan’s SoftBank.

Indonesian local Go-Jek reportedly got US$1.2 billion this year, with Tencent and JD participating in the round. The involvement of the Chinese firms was recently confirmed by a Go-Jek spokesperson, but without revealing the funding amount.

Fleet size

Three out of 600,000: Go-Jek drivers Lokot, Sulaiman, and Hidayat (L-R).  Photo credit: Tech in Asia.

Go-Jek earlier this month revealed new fleet size numbers: It now claims to have 654,000 drivers (497,000 two-wheel, 157,000 four-wheel), and 95,000 merchants signed up on its platform in Indonesia.

That’s more than double the 300,000 drivers that Go-Jek spoke of in August. It’s possible that the more recent figure represents registered drivers, while 300,000 pertains to active drivers.

Grab, which operates across Southeast Asia, does not release country-specific data for its fleet size, so we don’t know how many drivers it has in Indonesia. Its latest corporate profile states a total of 1.3 million drivers in the region.

Cities

Street scene in Bukittinggi, one of the 25 new cities in Go-Jek’s network. Photo credit: Ken Marshall.

Services