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Simon Huang · · 5 min readGrab’s future: AI, automation, and maybe no drivers?
In the trading day following Grab’s announcement of its fourth quarter and full-year 2024 results, its shares fell by 10% as investors recoiled due to its forecast for 2025 revenue falling just short of analysts’ estimates.
This was despite a strong set of results, which saw 2024 revenue rise by 19% from 2023.
The company also achieved positive adjusted EBITDA for the first time, while its net loss narrowed by 67%.
The company is expecting this momentum to continue into 2025.
During the earnings call, management also gave more details on the ride-hailing platform’s plans in artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles (AVs), areas which co-founder and CEO Anthony Tan said were, “for me personally…top of mind.”
“Going forward, I can confirm, we are in active discussions with regulators,” Tan said. “We intend to work closely with every government in Southeast Asia to drive this forward.”
A big update
Grab’s mobility business, which contributes the most in EBITDA, saw healthy growth. It had a 20% year-on-year rise in revenue and an accompanying 22% increase in adjusted earnings.
But it wasn’t so much the numbers that were significant this quarter. More noteworthy was how Grab broke its relative silence on the topic of AVs.
Tan noted that Grab had been “watching this space closely” and was “very excited about the long-term opportunity” of this technology.
He said that Grab was in a “prime position” to support the AV transition, with a “very significant role to play” in the region.
See also: Robotaxis and Grab’s billion-dollar dilemma
According to Tan, such a transition is likely to take place via a “hybrid AV-human fleet,” which suggests that human drivers would not be displaced, at least for a while. However, Tan also noted that the company was thinking of how it could help upskill its driver-partners.
In particular, Grab believes AVs have a role to play in serving routes where it is currently more difficult to hail a driver.
Grab co-founder and CEO Anthony Tan / Photo credit: Wikipedia
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The ride-hailing platform shared the plans as 2024 became its first-ever year with positive adjusted earnings.
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