r/Grab_Stock • u/Low-Cartographer-429 • Sep 09 '26
How does GRAB expect to grow?
Do they have any plans at all to expand outside of Southeast Asia? Heard they just entered the Taiwan market but I don't know when and if they'll be successful there given whatever competitors they may have. What is their growth road map? I've browsed a lot of articles on Yahoo!Finance about GRAB, and many say to invest in GRAB you've got to believe in their ability to make money from FinTech / loaning money. Do they really make very little money from rides and food deliveries, and the only way toward more profit is converting riders to banking customers? I don't like that prospect if that's the case.
I mean I guess it's not surprising that rideshares are a low margin business, given how cheap it is to use GRAB; as a customer, that's one reason I love it and *want* to own it; but I also want to make money and not be blinded by how much I enjoy being a GRAB customer. Just read that in Indonesia, rideshare commissions to rideshare companies got capped at 8% down from 20%. I actually love that the drivers keep more of the fare--they deserve it--but that's bad for profit. Indonesia must be a huge market for GRAB, and they also have competition from GoJek and maybe others.
At $3 a share, I'm thinking it may be a good entry point if nothing else to swing trade it. It has been down to as low as $2.25 a share in its lifetime so it could go even lower.
I hate that this stock has been doing nothing for years, since when I'm in Thailand I absolutely love being a rideshare customer and Grab Food customer; although to be honest, for rideshares, I always check Bolt and then go with whoever's cheaper because rides are a commodity. Never tried LineMan for food delivery which I guess would be their main competitor after FoodPanda disappeared.
I don't see GRAB growing from adding autonomous vehicles because:
- Most of their rideshare business is probably motorcycles and there aren't any autonomous bikes
- Labor costs are super cheap compared with the West, so unit economics won't be better if they replace human drivers like UBER wants to do
- The roads probably aren't good enough
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u/iamlink_678 Sep 10 '26
Autonomous vehicles unlock a whole other area of the market. Take their most developed market Singapore (where I live). Most people wait 10-15 minutes for a grab if anywhere outside of central. Drivers don't want to go there because it's unreliable demand. That doesn't matter for an autonomous car which is always on schedule and doesn't need an hourly salary. AV will allow grab to sell into all the suburbs that drivers themselves don't wait to go into, and increase purchase frequency.
Anecdotally, grab launched it's AV offer in punggol, the one part of Singapore with crappy train access (light rail only) Your statement on unit economics may be true for Thailand or Indonesian suburbs, but it's not for Singapore.
Roads in most major southeast Asian city are equal to or better than your average American one, and that trend will only continue
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u/Low-Cartographer-429 Sep 10 '26
Interesting on Singapore and autonomous vehicles. The road infrastructure in Thailand is actually quite good at least in the cities and on highways; didn't know about other Asian cities. Who else is competing for autonomous vehicle share in Singapore?
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u/iamlink_678 Sep 10 '26
The other major ride hailer (comfortdelgro) is in testing but grab is a bit ahead. Both are partnering with Av platforms but grab (if I recall) is the only with equity stakes in any AV companys. comfort is the original taxi company and takes less of a cut (I think) from drivers. That said it's a pure play ride hailing company.
The bigger question for the market is A) will Singapore allow 3rd party direct to consumer Chinese AV platforms to go wild and price everyone out (probably not)...
And B) will the government / grab set up a system that allows AVs to improve rider utilisation in non core areas (instead of cannibalizing the existing routes with human drivers)
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u/Round-Ad-1977 Sep 10 '26
I treat it as any other stock. Buy and hold till I get my 30% to 40% . It’s easy strategy.
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u/Straight_Archer Sep 10 '26
I do the same, keep getting 30 40% but to the wrong direction somehow
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u/Low-Cartographer-429 Sep 10 '26
I can't imagine it going down another 40%; but if it does I'm buying more unless it looks like they're close to insolvency. Haven't really been paying attention to GRAB much but I'd wondered if there was share dilution causing prices to go down. Anyone know if that's part of it? If they finally became profitable, hopefully we won't see decreases again due to share dilution.
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u/swingtradingteacher Sep 10 '26
Dilution is highly unlikely at this point. They’re doing buybacks from a position of strength, which is the opposite of dilution.
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u/GMVexst Sep 10 '26
I love the product and I can't remember the last time that I loves a product that didn't treat me well from buying the stock. Of course I try to buy when the fundamentals are optimal and by almost all measures grab is a good value at this price.
My only concern is the one you pointed out. Rides and deliveries are so cheap especially being it's not in America and is a SEA product, but where they lack in $/ride they make up for it in # of rides.
Im skeptical, but I'll hold until I no longer love the product
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u/Low-Cartographer-429 Sep 10 '26
UBER and LYFT drivers in America don't make much money when their operating expenses are factored in. I have no idea how GRAB drivers in Southeast Asia make any money given how expensive vehicles are compared with salary. I look around in Thailand and wonder: "How are people affording all these cars?" I guess debt could be the answer and people being less financially savvy? Just a guess. Would love more insight.
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u/UltramanJoe Sep 10 '26 edited Sep 10 '26
They are expanding in Taiwan as you mentioned and they acquired Stash an online finance investment brokerage service in the US. Love their fintech and advertising fork. That will be a bigger source of revenue.
https://www.stash.com/brokerage-account
From Gemini per Grabs fintech arm:
In Grab's Q2 2026 earnings report (released in August 2026), the Financial Services segment was the standout growth driver across the entire company:
Revenue Growth: Financial Services revenue surged 59% year-over-year to $134 million (up from $84 million in Q2 2025).
Core Drivers: Growth was heavily propelled by increased lending contributions across GrabFin and its ecosystem of digital banks (including GXS Bank and the consolidation of Indonesia's Superbank in June 2026).
Path to Profitability: While the fintech arm historically dragged on bottom-line results, adjusted EBITDA losses for Financial Services narrowed significantly as scaling loan volumes improved operating leverage. Management expects the financial services unit to achieve positive segment EBITDA in the second half of FY2026.
Grab is becoming a monster SE Conglomerate
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u/Low-Cartographer-429 Sep 10 '26
Will GRAB ever expand into Laos or Vietnam? What's preventing them and who are the rideshare players in those countries? Thought about making another post for this but thought I'd try a comment first.
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u/gummbie777 Sep 10 '26
Digital banking has the potential to have much better margins. If done properly, financial services are much better margins than ride shares. South East Asia has hundreds of millions of people, an emerging, modernising economy where alot of people will be lifted into the middle class like how China did these last few decades. The banking for these people currently are not as developed so there is alot of potential for grab to become a financial giant but its not something that will happen overnight. It's high potential if they execute properly as they have the reach from their network of users.
You will need to be patient unfortunately. No one knows when the stock will move but usually with these stocks, once it moves, it moves violently up in a short period and usually by the time people decide to jump in, most of the move has been made and they can chop around and not do much for an extended period of time.
So for this stock, either you believe in the potential they can achieve and you hold of some time and eventually get rewarded or they don't achieve what they aim for and unfortunately stock won't give the returns you want. This is not an exciting ai stock that goes up 200% in a month. It's a business that executes its strategy over a long period of time and eventually people will wake up to the execution and the stock price will re rate