Singapore-based ride-hailing giant Grab announced its first-ever profitable quarter, revealing a profit of $11 million in its fourth-quarter earnings report on Thursday. This marks a significant turnaround from the $391 million loss recorded in the same period a year ago. The company attributed the boost in profitability to improvements in Group adjusted EBITDA, fair value changes in investments, and reduced share-based compensation expenses.<\/p>\n
Revenue for the quarter surpassed analysts\u2019 estimates, reaching $653 million, compared to the projected $634.86 million by LSEG analysts. Grab\u2019s full-year 2023 losses amounted to $485 million, down 72% from $1.74 billion in the previous year.<\/p>\n
In addition to its ride-hailing services, Grab also offers financial services such as payments and insurance, along with deliveries for food, groceries, and packages. CFO Peter Oey highlighted the strong demand in the mobility space and the record growth in the deliveries business, signaling robust momentum for the company.<\/p>\n
Grab unveiled plans for a share buyback program, aiming to repurchase up to $500 million worth of class A ordinary shares. This move reflects Grab\u2019s shift towards profitability and prudent cost management, a departure from its earlier strategy of prioritizing growth over profitability.<\/p>\n
Total incentives, including partner and consumer incentives, were reduced to 7.3% of the total value of goods sold during the fourth quarter, down from 8.2% in the same period a year ago. Grab had previously offered incentives to attract drivers and passengers but is now focusing on improving marketplace health and driving profitability.<\/p>\n
Looking ahead to 2024, Grab expects revenue between $2.70 billion and $2.75 billion, slightly lower than analysts\u2019 consensus. Despite these positive developments, Grab\u2019s shares closed 8.41% lower on Thursday, reflecting a broader market sentiment. Since its listing on the Nasdaq in December 2021, Grab\u2019s share price has plummeted by 75.8%.<\/p>\n
Grab\u2019s journey to profitability underscores the challenges and adjustments faced by tech startups as they navigate the balance between growth and profitability in a changing market landscape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Singapore-based ride-hailing giant Grab announced its first-ever profitable quarter, revealing a profit of $11 million in its fourth-quarter earnings report on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":32732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[4745,95],"class_list":["post-33002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech","tag-tech","tag-usa"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}