Toyota turns attention to ride hailing market with Grab investment
Uber’s rival Grab, the largest ride-hailing service in Southeast Asia, has netted an investment from Japanese automotive giant Toyota in its latest investment round, with a target of $2.5bn.
The investment includes an aspect of collaboration, in which the two companies will work together to optimise Toyota’s vehicles within Grab’s network, using the data-transmission TransLog driving recorder in 100 units to study driving patterns and deliver in-car telematics services.
"Through this collaboration with Grab, we would like to explore new ways of delivering secure, convenient and attractive mobility services to our fleet customers in Southeast Asia,” said the Senior Managing Officer of Toyota, Shigeki Tomoyama.
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Grab boasts of 1.2mn drivers across the platform, located in 87 cities across seven countries in Southeast Asia, claiming to have a 95% share in the region’s third-party ride haling and a 71% share in private vehicle hailing.
"Toyota is a global leader in the automotive sector and one of the most popular brands with drivers on our platform right across Southeast Asia, and we're excited to work together to explore how we can extend more and better-connected car services to our driver partners," said Anthony Tan, co-founder and CEO of Grab Inc.
"We are confident this will benefit our driver partners, and we look forward to exploring other ways to collaborate with Toyota in the future."
The sum of Toyota’s investment is yet to be disclosed, however, it is known that SoftBank and Didi contributed a combined sum of $2bn, already going some way to securing the total target of $2.5bn.
