Singapore’s Grab to start selling map data to businesses & More News Here

South-east Asian tremendous app Grab will start selling its map data to businesses because the group strives to turn out to be worthwhile amid issues over lossmaking know-how corporations.

The ride-hailing and meals supply app will launch a enterprise targeted on selling map data and map-making capabilities, pitting the Singapore-based firm in opposition to US tech big Google’s map service and different world geolocation suppliers such because the Netherlands-based TomTom.

The transfer is a part of a push by Grab to develop its business-to-business unit in an try to turn out to be worthwhile. It believes south-east Asia’s mapping market shall be price $1bn by 2025.

Grab went public final 12 months in one of many largest Spac offers, however its shares have plunged greater than 70 per cent as buyers have shunned lossmaking tech corporations. The group posted a internet lack of $435mn within the three months ending in March.

“The freshness of mapping data is very important, particularly in a developing region like south-east Asia”, mentioned Grab co-founder and chief working officer Tan Hooi Ling.

Grab up to date mapping data each day, as opposed to different suppliers that solely up to date just a few instances a 12 months, Tan mentioned. “We can very quickly tell from the driver GPS the road has become one way, two way or nonexistent at any point in time,” she mentioned. The firm additionally depends on suggestions from drivers and its customers.

The group’s enterprise unit accounts for simply over 6 per cent of its general income, but it surely hopes to broaden the enterprise to “what Amazon Web Services has become to Amazon”, in accordance to Tan.

AWS accounted for 74 per cent of the US tech big’s working revenue in 2021, regardless of solely making up 13 per cent of its revenues. Tan didn’t give income targets for Grab’s enterprise enterprise.

“Enterprise businesses generally always have higher margins, so that should be expected for us as well,” Tan mentioned.

“Expanding the enterprise business also enables us to have more resilience, irrespective of whatever is going on in the global economy” which have an effect on calls for for companies like journey hailing and meals supply, she added.

The firm makes use of OpenStreetMap, a free, crowdsourced database, as its base map, but it surely now not makes use of paid third occasion map companies in seven of the eight international locations it operates in. The final remaining market, Indonesia, will turn out to be “self-sufficient” by the third quarter of this 12 months.

Cost is likely one of the issues of third occasion apps for mapping. Uber mentioned in its preliminary public providing prospectus in 2019 that it had paid Google “an aggregate of approximately $58mn” from January 2016 by way of December 2018 for its mapping service.

Switching to its personal map data would assist save Grab “more than” what Uber was paying to Google, Tan mentioned.

Earlier within the 12 months, the corporate employed Steve Coast, founding father of OpenStreetMap, as head of engineering at its Geo Innovation division in its push for map enterprise.

Grab is taking a look at increasing the mapping enterprise into geographies past south-east Asia, even in developed markets the place established mapping gamers have a stronghold.

It is at present working a pilot mapping program in Paris, Johannesburg, Dubai and Seattle, and Tan mentioned Grab had already signed an settlement with a “global tech company” in utilizing its map companies.

The mapping enterprise “is interesting and very exciting because it creates the opportunity to show how local technology created for local needs can actually start to show value at a global platform”, she mentioned.

Additional reporting by Oliver Telling in Singapore

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