Southeast Asia’s two biggest ride-hailing companies are once again circling each other. Singapore’s Grab Holdings and Indonesia’s GoTo Group have sped up merger discussions and hope to seal a deal in 2025, people familiar with the situation told Bloomberg News in a February 4, 2025 report carried by The Straits Times, in a bid to end years of losses in a region of more than 650 million consumers.
The logic is cost. Both firms, which went public in recent years and have been edging toward profitability, burn money competing for the same riders and diners, and a combination would trim duplicated spending and blunt price wars in their core markets. GoTo itself is the product of a merger, formed in May 2021 when ride-hailing giant Gojek combined with e-commerce platform Tokopedia. Grab counts Uber Technologies among its backers, while SoftBank sits among GoTo’s investors.
The obstacles are familiar. Past talks stalled on disagreements between the companies and on antitrust worry, since the two dominate markets including Indonesia and Singapore, and the people cautioned the current round may still collapse into nothing. Regulators are the flagged battleground: Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Nathan Naidu said a Grab-GoTo combination “effectively cement both firms’ market leadership amid intensified rivalry in the sector, but the deal will face tough regulatory scrutiny as the two are the top on-demand-service players in many of South-east Asia’s key markets.” He pointed to new pressure besides: “Taxi operator Trans-Cab is entering Singapore ride-hailing, while foreign entrants such as Bolt, in-Drive and Lalamove Ride are shaking up the space, making headway in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.”
Markets liked the sound of it anyway. GoTo shares rose as much as 6.2 percent in Jakarta on February 4, extending their 2025 gain past 20 percent, while Grab slid about 4 percent in New York; together the companies are valued near US$25 billion. Each has also been tidying its portfolio, with Grab adding a Malaysian grocery chain and a Singapore dining-booking app to its stable, and GoTo ceding its loss-making e-commerce arm to TikTok, owned by ByteDance, in a US$1.5 billion deal.
Then came the denial. In a February 4 filing, GoTo said it was not in discussions with any party and “does not have any material corporate action plans for the next 12 months other than the implementation of share buybacks”, a stance it also took when similar reports surfaced in 2024. Whether that kills the idea or merely parks it, the underlying pressures remain: growth has cooled from triple-digit rates as inflation and interest rates squeeze consumers, and both companies keep hunting for ways to stop losing money in the region’s cut-throat internet market.
Sources
- Grab and Gojek parent GoTo accelerate merger talks, aiming for deal in 2025 | The Straits Times
- Grab, GoTo allegedly eye 2025 merger, but GoTo denies reports
