A tale of 3 listed Indonesian tech companies

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Hello,

Things in life tend to come in threes. Rock, paper, scissors. Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry. There are three witches in Macbeth and three bears in the story of Goldilocks. We use phrases like “third time’s the charm,” and trilogies are a pretty popular format for both books and movies. The triangle – which has three sides – is also known for being the strongest shape, and whenever I sneeze, I tend to sneeze three times in rapid succession.

There’s certainly something about the number three, which is why in today’s premium story, we take a look at three listed Indonesian tech companies and how they fared in the first quarter of 2023. Amazing segue, eh? Thanks.

Today we look at:

• GoTo, Bukalapak, and Blibli’s Q1 results
• eFishery’s entry into the unicorn club
• Other newsy highlights such as Circles’ joint venture in Abu Dhabi and Amazon and Atome’s BNPL partnership

— Stefanie

Premium summary

Let’s look at these financials

Image credit: Timmy Loen

GoTo, Bukalapak, and Blibli have released their results for the first quarter of 2023. Markets seem to have reacted well to GoTo’s figures – as of May 4, its share price was up 9%. However, share prices of Bukalapak and Blibli have remained relatively unchanged. Let’s take a closer look.

• Slowly growing: All three companies facilitated a higher value of transactions on their respective platforms in Q1 2023 compared to the same period a year before. GoTo saw the slowest year-on-year growth at 6%, while transactions on Blibli expanded by 78% off a much smaller base. Bukalapak fell in between.
• Money talk: All three companies saw healthy year-on-year topline growth. GoTo was most impressive, with its net revenue up by 123% from US$102 million to US$227 million. This can be attributed to the three Is: incentives, innovation, and increments.
• What’s next: All three firms can loosely be described as ecommerce companies with a focus on Indonesia, but they are also involved in different businesses. GoTo has logistics and consumer lending, Bukalapak has secondhand gadgets and its Mitra business, and Blibli operates an omnichannel strategy. The impact of this divergence will be more apparent with time.

Read more: Why GoTo’s shares jumped following Q1 results, while Bukalapak and Blibli are flat

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