Decacorn carrier Gojek goals to expand its overseas presence over the subsequent five years, its co-founders told a packed audience at an event marking the corporate’s ninth anniversary in Jakarta on Saturday. The Indonesian company’s plans to travel to the Philippines and Malaysia are still into consideration.
“We are definitely looking to expand to the Philippines and Malaysia next year. We have prepared everything to enter these markets,” said Andre Soelistyo, co-CEO of Gojek. In addition to those two countries, Gojek can also be considering the opportunity of entering one other country within the region next 12 months, the name of which has not been determined.
Late last month, the corporate made headlines when its co-founder and CEO Nadiem Makarim stepped down and joined Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s latest cabinet as the brand new minister of education and culture. The company then announced the appointment of Andre Soelistyo and Gojek co-founder Kevin Aluwi as its co-founders.
Experts tracking the corporate told DealStreetAsia that Makarim’s departure from Gojek could throw uncertainty into the corporate at a critical time to embark on regional expansion and tackle its biggest rival Grab. Gojek is currently present in markets equivalent to Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore, where Grab already has a presence – the latter entered these markets well before Gojek.
Earlier this 12 months, Gojek acquired Philippine payments startup Coins.ph in a bid to determine a presence within the country. There are also rumors of the corporate working with local conglomerate Ayala Corp to fulfill the country’s foreign ownership laws. On Saturday, Soelistyo said that while Gojek already provides payment services within the Philippines, it has not yet rolled out “full services” within the country.
Gojek began as a passenger transportation app in 2010. Today, the startup, valued at over $10 billion, offers a variety of services along with air transport, equivalent to food delivery, digital payments, shopping and hyperlocal deliveries. It claims to process over two billion transactions yearly.
Gojek said in an announcement that it has 29.2 million monthly energetic users in Indonesia, 800,000 monthly energetic users in Singapore, 2 million in Thailand and 4.3 million in Vietnam.
