Singapore – Grab announced its new technology GrabMaps, a new enterprise service that Grab can leverage to capture the US$1 billion market opportunity in Southeast Asia per year for its mapping and location-based services. First developed for in-house use, GrabMaps was created to address Grab’s need for more hyperlocal solution to power its services.
Currently, GrabMaps offers location-based services for all Grab verticals in 7 out of 8 countries it operates in, and Grab expects to be fully-sufficient with GrabMaps by Q3 2022.
Tan Hooi Ling, co-founder, Grab, said, “Grab’s focus is how we can always deliver technological innovations that address the needs of every Southeast Asian region appropriately, and GrabMaps is one example.”
According to Ling, the narrow roads and alleys commonly found in Southeast Asian cities, frequented by their driver and delivery partners often do not appear on conventional maps. “We have invested in turning this intelligence into a competitive advantage, enabling us to serve our customers and partners with the best possible experience, while driving efficiency and cost savings for the business. We are very pleased that soon we will be fully using our own mapping technology,” added Ling.
Mapping, pick-up point technology such as points of interest (POI), and route intelligence are vital parts of the core features that platforms like Grab rely on. Currently, GrabMaps supports more than 800 billion API calls per month across various Grab services.
Internal data also shows that for countries that have made full use of GrabMaps, the ease of finding the right pick-up point for transportation bookings has increased by an average of 3%, while the accuracy of estimated travel time (ETT) has increased by 1% regionally, with some countries experienced an increase of up to 7.8 percentage points.
The main advantage of GrabMaps lies in the principle of community-based mapping that involves consumers, business partners, and Grab’s fleet of driver and delivery partners.
The GrabMaps solution draws on new data from millions of orders and rides served every day, where feedback from partners is obtained directly real-time information, from road closure information, business address changes, and more. Driver-partners and delivery-partners also have the opportunity to contribute to developing our maps, collecting pick-up points and other data such as street images, street names, traffic signs and more to earn additional income. With this, GrabMaps is not only superior in terms of accuracy, coverage and updates but also cost-efficient.
Philipp Kandal, head of Geo, Grab, said, “As superapp The leading company in the region, GrabMaps supports Grab to serve the daily needs of millions of consumers every day. With our track record and deep understanding of Southeast Asia, we believe GrabMaps can be the best mapping platform of choice for Southeast Asia.”
