Grab Holdings Inc., Southeast Asia’s leading superapp, today announced financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2021. Grab and Altimeter Growth Corp. (Nasdaq: AGC) today also filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) a draft registration statement on Form F-4 (the “Registration Statement”), in connection with their recently announced proposed business combination. While the registration statement has not yet become effective and the information contained therein is subject to change, it provides important information about Grab’s business and operations, proposed business combination with Altimeter Growth Corp. (“AGC”) and the proposals to be considered by AGC’s shareholders

“We are pleased with our progress toward becoming a publicly-traded company, which we expect to occur in Q4 2021,” said Anthony Tan, Group CEO and Co-founder of Grab. “As we prepare to become a listed company, we’re sharing our first-ever quarterly financial results and we continue to deliver strong growth, despite the ongoing impact of COVID-19. Southeast Asian consumers trust Grab to meet their everyday needs in a growing number of ways, and we are excited about the emerging growth opportunities we see in our grocery delivery and financial services offerings.”

“We exceeded our internal targets for Adjusted Net Sales and Adjusted EBITDA for Q1 2021, and continued the strong growth momentum of our deliveries business,” said Peter Oey, Chief Financial Officer of Grab. 

“We saw robust topline growth, even compared to the first quarter of 2020 that saw limited impact from COVID-19, and took strides towards profitability. In the second quarter we saw the continuing resilience and strong performance of our business, combined with disciplined operational execution. We are confident that our diversified geographical and vertical footprint puts us in a strong position to capture the massive opportunity in Southeast Asia.”

Strong First Quarter 2021 Financial Results (for the three months ended March 31, 2021)

First Quarter 2021 Financial and Operational Highlights:

• Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) grew 5% year on year to reach $3.6 billion. Deliveries GMV demonstrated strong year on year growth of 49%, offset by weakness in mobility as a result of the lockdowns and other restrictions imposed by governments on the back of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Adjusted Net Sales reached an all-time high of $507 million, up 39% year on year. Revenue achieved a record $216 million.
• Grab achieved its strongest quarter for Adjusted EBITDA at $(111) million, which improved by $233 million year on year.
• Total Segment Adjusted EBITDA, which excludes regional corporate costs, was $35 million, an improvement of $231 million year on year.
• Net loss, which includes non-cash items related to interest accrued on Grab’s convertible redeemable preference shares and depreciation, was $(652) million, compared to $(771) million in Q1 2020.
• Spend per user, defined as GMV per Monthly Transacting Users (MTU), increased by 31% year on year, highlighting the strength of Grab’s superapp synergies across its business segments.
• As of March 31, 2021, Grab had $4.9 billion of cash and cash equivalents, an increase of $1.4 billion from $3.5 billion as of December 31, 2020. This was primarily due to the closing of Grab’s first senior secured term loan facility (the Term Loan B Facility) of $ 2.0 billion at the end of January 2021.
• In Q1 2021, Grab was the most downloaded app and had the highest number of average smartphone monthly active users in Southeast Asia1 for the mobility and delivery category2, according to App Annie. This is across both iOS and Google Play combined. Grab’s cumulative downloads from launch through Q1 2021 and average smartphone monthly active users base in Q1 2021 were also more than 2x higher than the next largest mobility and delivery app in the region.

Deliveries

• Grab continued to see strong growth in deliveries during Q1 2021, generating GMV of $1.7 billion, representing an improvement of 49% from GMV of $1.1 billion in Q1 2020, driven by increases in both the number of transactions and order value as it witnessed a strong upsurge in new MTUs coming onto the deliveries segment over the past year.
• Adjusted Net Sales for deliveries was $293 million, up $144 million and 96% year on year, while Revenue was $53 million, a $152 million increase year on year.
• Deliveries Adjusted EBITDA of $(4) million was up $147 million year on year.
• Grab continued to scale GrabMart, an everyday goods delivery offering that has expanded across Grab’s 8 Southeast Asian markets. GrabMart’s GMV for Q1 2021 increased by 21% quarter on quarter compared to Q4 2020, and was 36x higher compared to Q1 2020.

Mobility

• Due to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns and restrictions imposed in Grab’s various markets, mobility GMV in Q1 2021 represented approximately 64% of Q1 2020 levels.
• Mobility Adjusted Net Sales was $167 million, a 14% year on year decline, while Revenue increased by 18% year on year to $145 million.
• Mobility Adjusted EBITDA was $115 million, an increase of $34 million, or 42%, year on year, and Grab continues to be Segment Adjusted EBITDA positive in all of its core markets.
• Grab anticipates that the demand for mobility services will continue to experience volatility as resurgence in COVID-19 cases have impacted its markets, leading to renewed restrictions.

Financial Services

• In Q1 2021, Grab’s financial services segment achieved its highest quarterly Total Payments Volume (Pre-InterCo)4, demonstrating year on year growth of 18%, supported by strength in payments generated from both on-Grab platform and off-Grab platform use cases. This was in spite of COVID-19 impacting Grab’s mobility segment and footfall to physical stores.
• Financial services saw Adjusted Net Sales increase by 31% year on year to $23 million, while Revenue increased by $29 million year on year to $8 million.
• Financial services Adjusted EBITDA improved by $39 million year on year to $(78) million.
• Loan disbursals via the on-Grab platform increased by over 45% year on year as Grab continued to improve credit scoring models and launched new lending products in Q1 2021.
• Insurance offerings demonstrated strong growth and gross written premiums more than tripled year on year as mobility-related product sales increased.

Enterprise and new initiatives

• Grab saw strong year-on-year growth in enterprise and new initiatives in Q1 2021, with GMV growing more than 3.5x to reach $26 million.
• Adjusted Net Sales for enterprise and new initiatives improved 388% year on year to $25 million, while Revenue was $10 million in Q1 2021.
• Enterprise and new initiatives Adjusted EBITDA also turned positive to $2 million.

As of March 31, 2021, Grab had $4.9 billion of cash and cash equivalents, an increase of $1.4 billion from $3.5 billion as of December 31, 2020. Total outstanding debt as of March 31, 2021 was $2.1 billion, a $1.9 billion increase from the $212 million balance as of December 31, 2020, primarily due to the closing of its Term Loan B Facility in January 2021 of $2.0 billion.

Category Leadership and Market Opportunity Supports Long-Term Growth Trajectory

Euromonitor conducted research to quantify the market opportunity in Southeast Asia and determine category share across Grab’s three core verticals: deliveries, mobility and financial services. Based on Euromonitor’s independent analysis, Grab was the category leader in 2020 by GMV in online food delivery and ride-hailing, and by TPV in the e-wallet segment of financial services in Southeast Asia1.

With Grab’s scale and category leadership, Grab continues to be well-positioned to capture a total addressable market that is estimated to grow from approximately $52 billion today to more than $130 billion by 2025 across online food delivery, ride-hailing and e-wallet, according to Euromonitor.

“We’re pleased by the team’s execution and the growth and resilience of Grab’s diversified business model in Q1,” said Brad Gerstner, founder & CEO of Altimeter Capital. “Altimeter is thrilled to support Grab as a long-term partner in their journey to become a public company, so they can continue to meet the needs of millions of people in Southeast Asia.”

Source: Euromonitor International estimates from desk research and trade interviews with leading market players and relevant industry stakeholders in the prepared meal, ride hailing and e-wallet sectors

More detail on Euromonitor’s analysis is available in Grab’s F-4 filing.