Under the Radar: Gojek Singapore’s GM on driver supply crunch, path to profitability and whether players in the ride hailing industry can achieve sufficient economies of scale

The Evening Runway with Hongbin Jeong, Roshan Gidwani and Chua Tian Tian

This is a company that you’ll come into contact with perhaps on a day to day basis.

Make a guess - if you’re thinking along the lines of ride hailing apps - you’re on the right track! Established back in 2010, our guest is Southeast Asia’s ride hailing giant and leading on-demand platform Gojek.

Fun fact here, the firm actually started out as a call centre focusing on courier and motorcycle ride-hailing services in the early 2010s before launching its app in January 2015 in Indonesia.

Fast forward to today, the firm provides access to a wide range of services including transportation, food delivery and logistics, with the aim to use technology to remove life’s daily frictions.

It now operates in markets including Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore with over 2.5 million driver partners across the region.

Gojek’s parent company GoTo Group reported that it turned EBITDA positive in the fourth quarter of the financial year ended 2023, even as the full year’s net loss widened by over 120%. But how far did Gojek Singapore contribute to the group’s performance?

Also – how does Gojek Singapore assess its path to profitability in looking ahead with Q1 2024’s figures just in?

Meanwhile, the firm recently announced a partnership with taxi operator ComfortDelGro that it will dispatch rides not taken up by drivers to each other’s platform.

But how far will the collaboration bolster Gojek’s financials and help it increase customer retention with the shortage of drivers being a perennial issue within the industry here in Singapore?

On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Lien Choong Luen, General Manager, Gojek Singapore.

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