Will Asia’s Grab Prove That Ridehailing Apps Can Be Global?

The idea of your everyday ridehailing app working anywhere in the world, earning you points as you would at home, is wonderful. Try downloading Uber from Asia, or Grab from the U.S., and chances are you wish it were already here.

Southeast Asia’s Grab wishes that too, hence its investment in tech startup Splyt — see the full article below.

In theory, the vision of global, interconnected ridehailing is sweet. But there is good reason to be skeptical. For one there’s a safety and security issue. Who’d take responsibility if a booking that is made on a Grab app in, say, Dubai, and is delivered by Careem as the supply partner there, goes wrong? Would that be Grab, Splyt, or Careem?

The idea of a global ridehailing world also seems to be a fallacy as Grab, an exclusive partner and investor of Splyt, won’t have rival Go-Jek be part of it. There goes the idea that everyone can use their preferred ridehailing app anywhere in the world.

— Raini Hamdi, Skift Asia Editor, [email protected], @RainiHamdi

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Asia Editor Raini Hamdi [[email protected]] curates the Skift Asia Weekly newsletter. Skift emails the newsletter every Wednesday.

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