Indonesian ride-hailing and food delivery giant Gojek, whose Thai unit Get recently moved to unite under the same brand, on Wednesday launched the Gojek app in Thailand with a heavy subsidy for the platform's users in order to gain ground in the highly competitive market.
E-commerce pundit Pawoot Pongvitayapanu said the unified brand under Gojek for the region will make it easier for investors to see the growth of all Gojek users, which could boost their confidence in investing in the next funding round.
"The local brand may be too weak to be attractive," he said, adding that the time is right to make such moves, as users and restaurants are accustomed to food delivery services in the wake of the pandemic.
In July, Get said it would unite its app and brand under Gojek as part of a long-term strategy to make a positive impact and boost innovation for customers in the Thai market.
The move is also part of the unicorn startup's plan to unify its local units in Asean under the Gojek brand.
"After we tested the market by using the local brand Get for 18 months, this is the time to rebrand and launch Gojek under a single application brand," said Pinya Nittayakasetwat, country general manager of Gojek Thailand.
This will also unify all local brands in Asean to upgrade the user experience and thrive to "make aggressive moves in investment and speedy expansion", he said.
Gojek has been operating in Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand, the latter two of which earlier had local brands. In Vietnam, Gojek previously used the GoViet brand, which was relaunched as Gojek on Aug 5.
"By having a single app, we have the technological architecture and thousands of engineers from Gojek, which could help hasten the launch of new services faster with the seamless back-end system," Mr Pinya said.
The Gojek app in Thailand provides three services: food delivery, motorbike ride-hailing and courier. There are 50,000 drivers and 30,000 food merchant partners in the Bangkok area.
To attract users and bolster brand recognition, Gojek is giving away 2,500-baht discount e-coupons for new users until the end of this month.
"This is the largest and most aggressive promotion in the market," Mr Pinya said.
He said Gojek still relies on the local management team and pays the local tax.
Asked about rumours of a possible merger of Gojek and Grab, Mr Pinya dismissed the claim as untrue.
Kevin Aluwi, co-chief executive of Gojek, said Thailand is a strategic market for Gojek and its local team's operation has proved successful.
He said his vision is of Gojek gaining half its revenue from users outside of Indonesia.
"Having a unified global brand is the path of the journey," Mr Aluwi said.
Gojek has been operating in 215 cities in Asean with over 170 million app downloads, 2 million driver partners and 500,000 merchant partners, 96% of whom are SMEs, according to Gojek co-chief executive Andre Soelistyo.