Grab marketing strategy analyst

Group 2-MKT101
Marketing Principles (MKT101)

Course: MKT101
LECTURER: Trần Đình Thành
Group 2
Vương Minh Thư-SS170433
Trần Hoàng Mỹ-SS170595
Lê Trần Tường Vi-SS170612
Lưu Thái Thành-SS170616
Trần Ngọc Trường Giang-SS170650


Nguyễn Gia Huy-SS170644

GRAB MARKETING STRATEGY ANALYST

I.Introduction
1.Market trend and overview


“Ride-hailing” or "Technology motorbike taxi" are two services that we Vietnamese have relied
on frequently in recent years. Furthermore, these services can save both costs and times for
passenger in moving, compared to traditional taxies. “With Southeast Asia growing population
and fast digitalization rate, it has seen a fast-developing online ride-hailing segment, which has a
forecasted market value of 42 billion U.S. dollars by 2025.” said by Minh Ngoc Nguyen.
Vietnam, which is also in this region, has become the most attractive market for ride-hailing
companies.[5]
When it comes to the well-known "technology motorbike taxi" brand in Vietnam, we can't help
but think of Grab - a simple, quick, and easy online vehicle booking application. Following
Grab's entry into the Vietnamese market in 2014 and its acquisition of Uber in 2018, the

Vietnamese ride-hailing business has become crowded, with companies including GoViet, be,
FastGo, Vato, Aber, MyGo, MLV, Go-ixe, Xelo, Ahamo, BAEMIN... Many of these names
have blurred during the last two years, and they no longer exist on the street... Grab, GoViet, and
be are the only three ride-hailing providers that now dominate the Vietnamese market.[2]


2.Company overview
According to Wikipedia, Grab (formerly known as GrabTaxi) is a Singapore-based technology
company that provides car transportation and transportation services in Singapore and other
Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia. , Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand,
Myanmar and Cambodia. [2]
Grab can be described as a new trend in Southeast Asian countries when it comes to
transportation. Customers can travel faster than taxis due to the application of technology in
calling, but it is extremely safety compared to traditional motorbike taxis.
Grab is currently growing up in 8 countries and 195 cities in Southeast Asia. More than 90
million devices are expected to have utilized this technology auto booking smartphone
application. More than 5 million people use it regularly ad there are more than 2 million drivers
up to now. Grab accounts for 95% of the worldwide motorbike taxi market.

3.Product and service overview
Initially, when it just entered the Vietnamese market, Grab only had basic services such as:
GrabBike, GrabCar, GrabTaxi… Since 2017, new services have been born as a way to compete
with Go Viet, Bee…, can be mentioned as Grab to the province, GrabExpress, GrabFood and
GrabHour.[2]
Grab implements its transportation service on the application provided by the company itself.
Customers can order vehicles by using its apps (motorcycle, car, taxi, delivery, food). Grab
provides all services on mobile application platform. This brand aims to help customers travel
more conveniently. And over time, Grab also almost expanded its services, creating convenience
and speed for customers.

Furthermore, Grab assists consumers with payment convenience in a variety of ways, including:
Cashing, GrabPay, GrabPay Credit,...

II. Competitive and position analysis
1.Competitor analysis
Overview
Entering Vietnam’s market, Grab has 2 main types of competitors:
Direct competitors: Baemin, Gojek, Bee,..
Indirect competitors: traditional taxi services: Me Linh taxi, Sao Viet taxi,..
Comparing to direct competitors, Grab was the dominant ride-sharing platform in Vietnam in 2019, with
73 percent of the market share ( according to ABI research) and continuing to grow.While Grab has
continually held a significant portion of the market share, other companies have expanded their
portfolios in order to compete with the market leader.


(Picture: wikipedia.org)

Market share
Ride hailing market share: Grab is leading in the Vietnam market. Grab became the
country's biggest ride-hailing platform, with over 70% market share. Aside from Grab, the
rest of the ride-hailing business was catered for by Indonesian Gojek, formerly known as
GoViet, and Vietnamese newcomer Be Group. While Grab and Be Group have both car
and bike ride sharing options, Gojek only recently added auto ride-hailing to their
repertoire in 2021.


Food delivery: Vietnam has seen a growth in demand for services such as online food
delivery in recent years.The COVID-19 outbreaks have increased the use of these
services, especially grocery delivery, because dining out was not an option during

lockdowns and stay-at-home orders were in place in numerous cities across Vietnam.

Revenue of online food delivery in Vietnam from 2017-2021
Grab Food is the most popular food delivery application in Vietnam, which account for
over 30% in market share during Covid-19 period.


However, Baemin has a lot of the highest discounts programs and promotions (accounting
for 46.86%), ranked second is GrabFood(accounting for 17.86%); Although there have
been many outstanding discount code activities since May 2020, Baemin still ranked 4th
in the end. During the Covid-19 season, GrabFood created a great association about
safety, reliability and kindness during the epidemic season, with 55.04% being mentioned
with related content, followed by Baemin, with 29.06%. GrabFood and NowFood are
leading the market in terms of food diversity, restaurants and freeship. Baemin excels at
bonding forms about convenient payment and many discount codes, Baemin and
GrabFood are loved for their driver stories, community movement...

Strength:
Grab's transportation services are safe and of high quality.
Drivers and automobiles can only work with Grab if they have been vetted.


Grab accepts cash, cards, and top-ups (prepaid) as payment methods.
Both the driver and the passenger may rate each other, offering feedback and increasing
consumer safety and assurance.
Bookings can be altered once they have been made.
There is a double drop-off option available.
The fleet consists of a wide range of different types of vehicles.
GrabCars (4 and 6 seats), GrabShare, GrabTaxi, and GrabCar+ are all available (Premium).
Grab provides transportation as one of its services, but it also provides food delivery,

mobile/data loading, and freight services.

Weakness:
The incentives given by Grab to drivers are low.
The system does have difficulties from time to time.
It is difficult to make a reservation during peak hours.
The fare was unjust during the rush.
The unprofessional and unseemly actions of the drivers resulted in negative publicity.
A firm has no control over its drivers' actions.
Customers may feel uneasy if drivers frequently solicit for gratuities or have a nasty attitude,
like in the case above.

Success factor
Solving real-world societal problems. The concept of Grab arose from the notion of tackling taxi
service challenges, such as passenger safety and service quality, by developing a platform to
link clients and licensed taxi drivers via an application. Importantly, Grab's creator focuses on


the bottom (Tung, 2015) by beginning to utilize cash and accept card payments in early
2016, in contrast to Uber, which strives to serve high-end clients by giving UberBlack.

2.Customer analysis
Segmentations
For people, Grab has excellent crowd adaptability. 62 years old senior, on to the new cohort elderly,
down to feeding children, women, young and old people can use the grab

Demographic
Grab provides services for all ages and genders. Customers with high or low income can use Grab
services. In addition, Grab has a business service called “Grab for business” which was created to help
businesses grow. Grab provides a unified digital platform to manage the day-to-day business needs of

companies, - from travel, food ordering, or delivery, to providing gifting solutions/ promotions with
GrabGifts vouchers to your company.

Geographic
According to TECHBIKE.VN, up to now, GrabCar operates in 5 major cities ( Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh,
Da Nang, Khanh Hoa, Quang Ninh) and GrabTaxi service operates in more than 34 provinces, so if
you travel or need to move by Grab in the above city, it is quite easy. Grab has just announced 3 new
cities: Thanh Hoa, Vinh and Pleiku, bringing the number of GrabFood operating cities to a total of 18
cities across Vietnam.

Psychographic
To attract customers, Grab aims at a discount strategy for users who often use food ordering service,
calling cars,... In order to turn them into familiar customers, understanding the psychology of customers
who want an affordable price with many incentives and good services, Grab has continuously launched


many promotions and points to stimulate customers behaviour. That helped Grab become close and
receive the support of the people

Target segments or customer portrait
Grab’s target segment is the price-conscious mass market that includes middle- and lower-income
customers

Differentiation and positioning strategies
Product Differentiation
Since its entry into Vietnam in 2014, Grab has become the leading super app in the country,
having established pole position in food delivery and ride-hailing amongst consumers while
Moca, Grab’s strategic partner in payments, is amongst the top leaders in digital payments.
Catching the explosive trend of digital, Grab started to invest in the growth of ride-hailing, food,
delivery, shopping, and online payment applications on mobile phones. Specifically, GrabBike,

GrabTaxi, GrabExpress, GrabPay. With the motto of sticking to the needs, following the wishes of
customers, Grab forever updates and develops its services much earlier than competitors .

Positioning
Grab is positioned as a popular company brand, focusing on reminding everyone to remember grab
when booking. Grab has a distinctive green colour, the colour of this brand covers from the brand
identity to the driver's uniform to help users easily detect grab


III. Marketing strategy analysis
1.

Product and Service strategy
Grab appeared in 2014 in Vietnam and the varieties of Grab’ services such as GrabTaxi,
GrabCar, GrabBike and later GrabExpress and GrabShare, compared with others such GoViet,
be, FastGo, Vato, Aber, MyGo, MLV, Go-ixe, Xelo, Ahamo, BAEMIN and so on.
Based on the International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality in Asia Pacific, Car services and
food delivery are two of Grab's distinctive services. A Grabcar is a mode of transportation that
transports passengers from one location to another. The goal of a Grab car is to meet the
demands of every passenger.
Grab is always improving their service quality and on 10 July 2018 in Singapore, Grab unveiled Grab
Platform, the first super app for everyday life in Southeast Asia, as part of its open platform strategy,
which will provide faster services like fast food delivery and Grab has a large number of cars,
popular in locations, making the customer's booking process easy and quick. For example, The level
of revenue in 2020 was nearly double about food delivery , in comparison with 2 years


ago

and

the

projections

will

increase

significantly


The picture shows Grab's meticulous services, customers have many choices in choosing

Price strategies
Followed by reporting by the Wall Street Journal, Uber has agreed to sell the majority of its
Southeast Asian operations to Grab in exchange for 20-30 percent of Grab's stock
When entering the Vietnamese market, Grab had to face many brands such as GoViet, be,
FastGo, Vato, Aber, MyGo, MLV, Go-ixe, Xelo, Ahamo, BAEMIN and so on , so Grab aimed
at affordable segmentation and many more offers, discounts. Moreover, Grab has many new
features as well as customers knowing exactly how much they have to pay before getting in the
car and driver's information for residents in order to trust Grab.


Here is the price list and offers of Grab compared with other brands

Grab's price is not too cheap nor too expensive compared to the Vietnamese market. According to the
General Statistics Office, the average monthly income of employees is 5.7 million VND. As a result,
Grab is more suitable for Vietnamese people's income. Moreover, grab has many promotions, sales,
discounts for residents per month or even per day.

This photo proves that the more you go, the further you go, the more promotions will get.


Based on Grab's official website, Grab also has other promotions for low income residents such as, with
journeys under 5 kilometres, Grab will support both customers and partners for a cost of 10,000 VND
for customers and 50,000 VND for phones at peak hours.

Place strategies
Distribution channel is an important factor in bringing products to customers. The Grab system
has diverse forms of distribution, including direct and indirect. Customers can find Grab's
products/services by downloading apps on the App store or Google play easily and quickly.


With the continuous development of digital technology and mobile devices, when in the modern
world no one can be without a smartphone, distributing products via mobile applications is the
choice. very correct choice. In addition, you can easily find a Grab driver on the road in
commercial, entertainment and central areas when needed. So much so that there are customers

who commented that "everywhere you go, you see green" of Grab. Grab's operation area covers
many provinces and cities in Vietnam.

It is known that Alibaba is preparing to invest 3 billion USD in Grab, this is considered the
biggest investment of this group in Southeast Asia since acquiring Lazada in 2016.
Not surprisingly, Alibaba is looking for new investment opportunities in Southeast Asia. Grab
has 187 million users as of June 2020 and also provides many services in addition to ridehailing services, such as delivery, food ordering, electronic payments…


With Grab and Lazada working together, Alibaba will likely continue its plans for Grab. Because
Lazada and Grab have integrated their logistics, with Lazada leveraging GrabExpress's network of
delivery partners to expedite orders for customers. Meanwhile, Grab's presence on the Lazada

application will contribute to speeding up the process of building Grab's "super app". All of this is
beneficial for Alibaba when it already owns Lazada and is about to contribute capital to Grab .

Promotion strategy
As for Grab's marketing strategy of mixed promotion (Promotion), Grab focuses on
implementing creative advertising campaigns and taking advantage of social media marketing to
draw in customers and increase brand awareness.


Marketing campaign
Because Grab's audience is especially adolescents, the corporation focuses on creative marketing
campaigns that are near customers. Take the brand's Star Wars campaign, as an example. The campaign
may be a good cooperation between Grab and Disney geographic area to market the movie "Star Wars:
The Last Jedi" - a movie that's loved by an oversized number of adolescents. This has helped Grab
connect with its target market more .

Leverage social media marketing
Leveraging social media marketing is additionally a marketing strategy of Grab. Grab uses social
media platforms like Facebook, Youtube and Twitter to capture the target market audience, increasing
the notice of Grab's brand through shared posts. As an example, Grab has created a hashtag community
for consumers to share and interact with, telling about their experiences with Grab, encouraging
constructive feedback to enhance service quality.


Besides, Grab also understands the trend of youngsters on social networks. For instance, understanding the
recognition of Rap Viet on social networks, Grab and Rapper Suboi - the primary female rapper of
Vietnamese rap have collaborated during this campaign. Taking advantage of the warmth that the program
about Rap is being discussed frequently, Grab quickly fixed the trend and launched a very right campaign.

IV. Conclusion and Recommendation

Conclusion
The company is developing supplementary products and services (such as investing and personal
assistants) to meet the needs of its customers.