AirAsia continues digital push after acquiring Go-Jek’s Thai business
Malaysia-based low cost carrier AirAsia will buy Indonesian super app Go-Jek’s Thailand business as it continues to strengthen its digital business.
AirAsia has had to alter the way it does business to keep itself flying during the Covid-19 pandemic
In exchange, Go-Jek will invest $50 million shares in AirAsia’s super app, giving it a 4.7% stake in the lifestyle platform, which provides travel, e-commerce and financial services. Together with logistics venture Teleport and the BigPay fintech business, the three form AirAsia Digital group.
"By taking on Go-Jek's well-established Thai business, we will be able to turbo-charge our ambitions in this space,” said Tony Fernandes, the chief executive officer of AirAsia.
Why is AirAsia buying over Go-Jek’s Thai business?
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Go-Jek has fallen behind its food delivery and ride-hailing competitors in Thailand from the likes of Line Man, Grab dominates ride-hailing and Estonia's Bolt.
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Thailand is Go-Jek’s smallest overseas market and made losses for two consecutive years from 2019-2020. It will now focus on expanding its operations in Vietnam and Singapore.
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AirAsia has had to alter the way it does business to keep itself flying during the Covid-19 pandemic. It previously explained to The Drum why it formed the AirAsia Media Group to consolidate its ad tech, content and media-related solution.
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It owns a wide variety of omnichannel media assets, its own first-party data and can rely on a workforce of over 20,000 employees.
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The focus for AirAsia now is to grow across Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore. While ad inventory continues to remain as hygiene, AirAsia is increasingly looking at redefining ads through its RedCarpet channel partnerships as the core of its 2021 strategy.
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Through the airasia.com super app ecosystem, the airline wants to look at creating more avenues for brands to find business growth