Japanese retail group Aeon will partner with Indonesian ride-hailing startup Go-Jek on digital payments and residential deliveries to spice up the shop operator’s overseas expansion, company sources said on Thursday.
According to sources, from mid-December each firms will cooperate, amongst others, in the sphere of cashless payments.
Since launching in 2015, Go-Jek has turn into one in every of Indonesia’s biggest unicorns – startups valued at greater than $1 billion. The company says it has greater than 100 million users on its smartphone app and has diversified into areas reminiscent of home delivery and mobile payments.
As a part of the alliance, Aeon will accept Go-Jek’s Go-Pay digital money at its two Jakarta shopping malls. The Japanese company may also offer home deliveries through Go-Jek drivers.
The scope of services shall be expanded with three recent sales points that Aeon plans to open after the 2019 fiscal 12 months, the sources said.
Aeon’s delivery service will feature Go-Jek drivers stationed at shopping malls, ready to select up and deliver goods to customers who order online. Japan’s largest retailer by sales expects the mixture of brick-and-mortar stores and delivery services to draw customers while helping it gain a stronger foothold in the net shopping sector.
Go-Jek launched in Vietnam in September and plans to expand to Thailand and the Philippines. Google, Microsoft and other global tech firms have invested within the startup.
Go-Jek hopes its partnership with the Japanese retailer will give it more fuel in its race against Singapore’s Grab to turn into the dominant “super app” in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries. Both firms wish to be the go-to app for on a regular basis things like payments and grocery shopping, and having more retail partners on their platform is important to success.
Aeon operates about 1,300 shopping malls, convenience stores and convenience stores in Southeast Asia. The two partners plan to work together in other regional markets beyond Indonesia.
Southeast Asia’s web economy was estimated to be value $72 billion in 2018, based on a study by Google and Singaporean investment firm Temasek. That figure is anticipated to achieve $240 billion by 2025, making the region ripe for mergers and acquisitions. China’s Alibaba Group Holding acquired Lazada, the region’s largest e-commerce operator, in 2016.
Like Go-Jek, Grab offers a spread of services, including cashless payments and deliveries. Both rivals need to cement their presence in a region where e-commerce is growing faster than traditional logistics services can sustain.
Aeon has expanded its operations in Southeast Asia since entering the region in 1984 with a Malaysian store. The company’s Southeast Asian locations posted an operating profit of 224.9 billion yen ($1.98 billion at current rates) for the fiscal 12 months led to February, up 7% from a 12 months earlier.
The Japanese retailer continued its regional expansion, investing 83.2 billion yen in recent investments in the present fiscal 12 months, a doubling compared with 2017.
But as Southeast Asia’s internet-based economies proceed to grow, Aeon is moving away from brick-and-mortar stores toward technology-driven services. As a part of its recent strategy, the corporate has partnered with Singapore-based Honestbee — Asia’s largest concierge shopping service — to run a web-based food market in Malaysia.
