Southeast Asia's Economies
Super Apps: Grab, GoTo and Sea
How Southeast Asian tech firms built "super apps" combining rides, food, payments and shopping, and the economics of bundling many services in one app.
Southeast Asia’s internet economy has grown rapidly, driven by young, mobile-first populations. Its leading tech companies built super apps: single apps offering many services.
The major players
- Grab, founded in Malaysia in 2012 and now based in Singapore, started with ride-hailing. It added food delivery, groceries, payments, loans and insurance. In 2018, it bought Uber’s Southeast Asian business.
- GoTo, formed in 2021 from the merger of Indonesia’s Gojek (rides and delivery) and Tokopedia (e-commerce).
- Sea Limited, based in Singapore, runs Shopee (e-commerce), Garena (gaming) and SeaMoney (financial services).
Why super apps work in the region
- Many users came online first through smartphones, not computers.
- Large unbanked populations needed digital payments.
- Fragmented markets rewarded local knowledge.
The economics of bundling
- Customer acquisition: once someone uses the app for rides, it’s cheap to offer food or payments.
- Data: knowing customers’ habits helps target offers and assess credit.
- Economies of scope: shared drivers, technology and brand.
- Lock-in: the more services you use, the harder it is to switch.
The profitability challenge
For years, these firms spent heavily on discounts and incentives to win market share, losing billions of dollars. After interest rates rose in 2022, investors demanded profits. Grab, Sea and GoTo cut costs, and Grab and Sea reported profits.
Competition
TikTok’s shopping features entered the region’s e-commerce market, and TikTok later took over Tokopedia’s e-commerce operations through a deal with GoTo.
Comparisons
India has fewer successful super apps, as users prefer separate apps, though payment apps like Paytm and PhonePe have tried to expand services.
A worker in Jakarta books a motorbike ride to work, orders lunch, pays her electricity bill and buys a birthday gift, all in one app. The company learns her habits and offers her a small loan for a new phone.
Many super apps lost money for years because of heavy discounts. Profitability came only after cost cuts.
- Grab, GoTo and Sea built super apps across rides, food, payments and shopping.
- Mobile-first, underbanked populations favoured super apps.
- Bundling lowers customer acquisition costs and increases lock-in.
- Years of losses gave way to cost cuts and profits after 2022.
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