MANILA -The Philippine unit of ride-hailing giant Grab Holdings Inc. is looking to grow its food delivery service to include five more provinces this year.
Grab Philippines director for deliveries Greg Camacho on Wednesday said the company aimed to complete the expansion within 2023.
“We are looking at a couple (of areas), in particular, certain areas in Northern Luzon,” Camacho told reporters on the sidelines of the company’s annual merchant conference dubbed GrabNEXT held at the SMX Convention Center Aura in Taguig.
“These are new markets. And you know, we do a lot of research and based on the data we’ve seen, there are still a lot of markets outside Metro Manila that are underserved,” he added.
The Grab Philippines executive said they were also looking to grow the number of merchant partners, which number in the tens of thousands today.
“From prepandemic (times) to current day, we are seeing an annual growth rate, on average, just above 60 percent,” he said, when asked about the growth trend in the last few years.
“I think what happened during the pandemic, as a function of lockdowns and businesses not being able to dine in, we really did see an explosive growth of (partner) merchants in that period,” he added.
Camacho said that while the company was still looking at a substantial growth even as a big portion of the population steadily moves to in-person purchases.
READ:
Grab keen on expanding food delivery service to more cities