Visualizing the size of Grab

In less than a decade, Grab has gone from being a unicorn to a decacorn. It’s also on the cusp of going public in the US through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) called Altimeter Growth – a listing that will propel Grab’s value to US$40 billion.

Though this SPAC deal is the world’s largest to date, Grab’s valuation is in the same ballpark as its main rival in Southeast Asia.

The Gojek-Tokopedia merger will value the combined entity at roughly US$40 billion, almost as much as Grab.

Clearly, though the SPAC deal values Grab at more than twice of its last known valuation, the company will not become a runaway force in Southeast Asia. Grab’s fight for dominance in the region will continue as it goes up against the merged force of Gojek and Tokopedia.

Furthermore, Grab’s valuation is much smaller compared to the valuation of similar firms such as China’s Didi Chuxing and Meituan, Ola in India, and US-based Uber, as the chart shows. It suggests that there’s more room to grow as the Southeast Asia market matures.

For example, Grab’s monthly active users are 25 million as of December 2020, compared to 93 million for Uber and 56 million for Didi Chuxing.

At US$40 billion, Grab’s valuation is 33.41x of its net revenue – the highest among comparable companies.

The Singapore-headquartered super app may have fended off Uber and bought its business in Southeast Asia, but Grab’s revenues are significantly lower than the Uber’s.

While Uber’s revenue before deducting excess incentives in 2020 was US$12.4 billion, Grab’s was at US$1.59 billion.

However, Uber operational loss is much larger at US$4.2 billion compared to Grab’s US$0.8 billion.

Uber is also far more efficient in terms of excess driver incentives. In contrast, Grab has been reducing excess driver incentives as a share of its revenue.

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