Grab, Southeast Asia’s biggest ride-hailing-to-food delivery group, lowered its full-year forecasts on Tuesday, citing renewed uncertainty over pandemic-related movement restrictions despite encouraging vaccination rates in the region.
Singapore-based Grab also said in a statement that it was making progress on its record merger deal agreed with US special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Altimeter Growth Corp earlier this year. And it reiterated that the deal, worth nearly $40bn, is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter.
Grab, which has operations across eight countries and more than 400 cities in a region of 650 million people, said it expects to report group-level adjusted net sales of $2.1bn to $2.2bn, versus an expected $2.3bn announced in April. It also forecast a group-level adjusted EBITDA loss of $0.7bn to $0.9bn for this year compared with a previously projected EBTIDA loss of $0.6bn.
“Grab’s full-year 2021 outlook anticipates an extension of partial and complete lockdowns throughout several countries where Grab operates as a result of the continuing spread of Covid-19,” the company said.
“Our deliveries business continues to outperform and is growing rapidly, with the addition of new offerings such as GrabMart and GrabSupermarket, and we expect to continue investing heavily in this segment,” Peter Oey, Grab’s CFO, said.
