IPO Overhead, Driver Incentives Take Bite Out of Grab’s Earnings

In its first quarterly earnings report as a public company, Southeast Asian super app Grab Holdings posted a decline in revenue as spending increased to offer higher commissions to attract drivers and greater incentives to users and partners. There were also additional expenses relating to the company’s December 2021 initial public offering (IPO).

“Southeast Asians are relying more and more on the Grab superapp for a multitude of daily needs. 56% of our users are now using two or more Grab services and the average user spend on our platform in 2021 grew 31% year over year,” Anthony Tan, Group CEO and co-founder of Grab, said in a press release on Thursday (March 3).

Tan added that Grab is launching a digibank in Singapore this year and will continue searching for new opportunities to better serve its customers.

See also: Grab’s Super-Sized SPAC IPO Underscores The Rise Of The Super App

Gross merchandise volume (GMV) went up by 29% year over year to hit $16.1 billion, with the fourth quarter up 26% to reach $4.5 billion, the fourth consecutive record quarter. Revenue — net of consumer, merchant and driver-partner incentives — went up 44% YoY to $675 million. Fourth-quarter revenue was $122 million, down 44% YoY.

Loss for 2021 was $3.6 billion and for the fourth quarter, $1.1 billion. Both figures include one-time non-cash interest expenses related to Grab’s shares.

Average monthly transacting users (MTUs) for 2021 were 24.1 million, down 2% YoY, mostly because of third-quarter lockdowns due to the delta and omicron variants of COVID-19. Grab closed out 2021 with 27.7 million MTUs in December 2021, more than any other month last year.

Read more: Grab Goes Public as Super-App Competition in SE Asia Heats Up

Full-year adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) declined 8% to $(842) million YoY. Fourth-quarter EBITDA was down was down by $203 million YoY to $(305) million.

Founded in 2012 as a regional ride-hailing app in Malaysia, Grab has since added food and grocery delivery, mobile banking and payments and operates a super app across Southeast Asia.