UberEats out, GrabFood in

A GrabFood driver collects a delivery. / Photo credit: Grab

The last vestiges of Uber’s Southeast Asia business evaporated last night when its UberEats food-delivery app went offline.

In its place, Uber acquirer Grab today launched its own GrabFood service, specifically in Malaysia and Singapore.

This comes after a pre-beta test phase that saw the new service road-tested in select neighborhoods in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

It’s already available in Indonesia and Thailand, but the acquisition of UberEats means that Grab has earmarked the app for wider regional expansion. Launches in Vietnam and the Philippines – which were not previously served by UberEats – are scheduled for later this quarter.

James Ong, head of GrabFood in Singapore, said in a press conference that majority of the new service’s delivery partners have been migrated over from UberEats. The GrabFood engineering team includes both existing Grab personnel as well as former Uber employees, he added.

As for merchant partners, GrabFood already has a number of well-known food outlets signed up. These range from purveyors of local fare like Hock Lam Beef Noodle to global brands like McDonald’s.

Grab’s next battleground

Grab claims Singapore’s total addressable market for on-demand food delivery stands at US$224 million, and estimates that 4,000 restaurants and 12,000 hawkers on the island have yet to join forces with a food-delivery app.

Nevertheless, it’s a highly competitive space. International players Foodpanda and Deliveroo dominate, while local outfits like Honestbee also have a stake in the market.

Go-Jek – Grab’s closest competitor since Uber’s exit – has outlined plans to bring its ride-hailing service to Singapore later this year, with its food-delivery platform Go-Food likely to follow at some point.

See: With Uber SEA purchase, Grab becomes a food-delivery giant

According to Ong, he believes GrabFood can differentiate itself in its offering to customers, merchants, and delivery drivers. As with UberEats, there’ll be no minimum order requirement for GrabFood customers. This contrasts with Deliveroo and Foodpanda, where merchants can set their own minimum order size, he said.

Food merchants will be able to tap into Grab’s extensive user base, effectively giving them an opportunity to upsell to the company’s ride-hailing and payments customers, Ong explained. They’ll also be able to integrate with the GrabRewards loyalty scheme in order to improve their customer engagement and marketing efforts. GrabFood customers will earn five GrabRewards points for every S$1 (US$0.75) they spend in the app.

Grab’s food-delivery partners can cash out their earnings on a daily basis and won’t have to pre-arrange the times they want to work, which Ong suggested was typically the case with other on-demand services. Instead, GrabFood drivers will be able to accept jobs as and when they wish through the app. They’ll also get free personal accident insurance through Grab’s financial services platform.