Indonesia’s earnings roundup featuring GoTo, Bukalapak, and Blibli

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Indonesia’s digital economy has been grabbing headlines for a while now. It is expected to grow into a US$130 billion market by 2025 and could further balloon up to a staggering US$360 billion by 2030, according to a joint report by Google (GOOGL, NDAQ), Temasek, and Bain and Company.

Its rapid growth is grounded on Indonesia’s strong social and economic fundamentals and booming offline-to-online trend, especially among affluent consumers and the digital-native youth in urban areas.

A hefty chunk of this lucrative opportunity is expected to come from ecommerce and on-demand services such as ride-hailing and online food delivery. However, the recent fortunes of three dominant Indonesian tech firms have been relatively mixed.

Investors rejoiced after GoTo Group’s (GOTO, IDX) latest quarterly report displayed the concrete steps it has taken on its path to profitability, but they were muted following reports from ecommerce majors Bukalapak (BUKA, IDX) and Blibli (BELI, IDX).

Today’s featured piece makes sense of the contrasting market reactions to the first quarter earnings reports from the three firms.

My colleague Simon dives into the nuts and bolts of these earnings releases and showcases how GoTo is reaping the benefits from its reduced emphasis on “low-quality” digital transactions.

The premium story also brings to the fore the impact of downsizing efforts at these firms, assesses their cash runways, and highlights the new business verticals GoTo, Bukalapak, and Blibli could venture into.

— Shravanth

THE BIG STORY

Image credit: Timmy Loen

Key takeaways from GoTo, Bukalapak, Blibli Q1 results
Indonesia’s tech companies are inching closer to profitability, although investors still have them on a tight leash.

3 Trends to keep an eye on

Hot stocks, earnings reports, restructuring, pressure from activist investors, and more.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

1️⃣ Singapore’s digibank battle is turning out one-sided: It appeared at one point last year that the city-state was going to witness a heated battle between Trust Bank and GXS Bank. But just nine months since their launch, Trust has close to 60x more monthly active users than GXS, according to industry estimates.

Trust, which also counts FairPrice Group – Singapore’s largest supermarket retailer – as a shareholder, has undoubtedly benefited from operating under the full bank license of its other owner Standard Chartered Bank (STAN, LON). This means Trust isn’t subject to a deposit cap, which has severely limited GXS.

In Singapore, US$37.5 million is the maximum deposit limit imposed on digital full banks by the country’s banking regulator.

While this measure protects depositors, it also places significant constraints on the growth of digibanks like GXS, which is backed by Grab (GRAB, NDAQ) and telecommunications major Singtel (Z74, SGX).

It has cornered these players into riskier strategies to expand their user and revenue base. For instance, GXS has recently introduced its first unsecured credit product, GXS FlexiLoan, which is a personal loan product combining features of a credit line and a personal installment loan.

See also: Going against Gojek, Grab: lessons from a defunct startup

2️⃣ Southeast Asia IPOs simmer below the surface: A number of market debuts appear to be in the works in Southeast Asia. Indonesia, the region’s largest economy, has already set the pace to beat this year. The archipelago was the most active country in terms of IPOs in the first quarter, seeing 30 listings that raised US$828 million, according to a report by Ernst & Young.

DigiAsia Bios seems poised to drive that momentum forward as it heads for the US trading floor this quarter. The Indonesian embedded financing firm sealed a SPAC deal with StoneBridge Acquisition in December 2022 at a pre-money equity valuation of US$500 million.

The Singapore Exchange could soon get in on the action too. Cancer diagnostics startup Mirxes is considering potentially the largest IPO on the city-state’s bourse in over a year, seeking to raise between US$100 million and US$200 million in its home country.

Another Singapore startup that has its heart set on a public listing is Skin Inc. The personalized skincare firm is eyeing an IPO on the Nasdaq by the first half of 2024 at a post-listing valuation of between US$150 million and US$400 million.

3️⃣ Banking on a bargain?: The banking crisis in the US has wreaked havoc across global markets. What initially started off with the fall of Silicon Valley Bank has now snowballed to include other victims such as Signature Bank and, more recently, First Republic Bank.

However, among the chaos, Kakao Pay has spotted an opportunity to snap up financial firms at depressed valuations. The company, which is the fintech subsidiary of South Korean conglomerate Kakao Corp (035720, KRX), is set to acquire a majority stake in US-based brokerage firm Siebert Financial Corp (SIEB, NDAQ).

In a ripple effect of the banking crisis, US-based neobank MoneyLion (ML, NYSE) pulled out of a deal with Japan’s Aeon (8267, TYO) to launch a digital Islamic bank in Malaysia. However, the Japanese conglomerate, which runs a chain of supermarkets and shopping malls in Malaysia, will proceed with the launch of the digital bank.

In other Malaysia news, BigPay, a unit of Capital A (CAPI, KLSE), has named its country head Zubin Rada Krishnan as acting group CEO. He succeeds Salim Dhanani, who stepped down in February.

Visual story: Org Chart: The C-suites powering Capital A

2 Eye-popping facts

Tech in Asia scours the internet to bring you head-turning numbers from the world of business.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

• 6: That is the number of European markets Temu, a unit of Chinese platform Pinduoduo (PDD, NDAQ), has expanded its operations to. The platform will hold grand opening sales for each newly added European country: Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, France, Spain, and the UK.

• 100%: The total transaction value of Chinese tourists in Singapore using Alipay nearly doubled in Q1 2023 compared to Q4 2022 as China reopened its borders and resumed group tours to the city-state. Alipay and Alipay+ both belong to Ant Group, the payments affiliate of Alibaba (BABA, NDAQ).

The one you didn’t see coming

We spotlight the story that had everyone talking and social media buzzing during the past week.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

From food delivery to beauty: Baemin, an indirect subsidiary of Delivery Hero (DHER, ETR), has opted to take a crack at the beauty and personal care space in Vietnam.

The leading South Korean food delivery platform will launch its beauty brand in the Southeast Asian nation as part of its efforts to build a lifestyle platform that consists of three verticals – food, retail, beauty – for the Vietnamese market.

Named Lazy Bee, the new brand will offer products manufactured in South Korea that are currently only sold in Ho Chi Minh City via the Baemin app. Baemin first entered Vietnam in May 2019 and has about 12% of the market share in the nation’s food delivery market, according to a Momentum Works report.

That’s it for this edition – we hope you liked it!

Happy investing and see you next week!

Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only. Kindly do not construe any such information as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.