GrabFood to launch in more cities in Philippines

Grab Philippines is eyeing to further expand its food delivery service to more key cities nationwide amid growing demand.

At a press conference in Taguig City on Thursday, Grab Philippines director for deliveries Greg Camacho said that eight in 10 merchants say that delivery platforms are a “must-have” for their businesses to survive.

Camacho added that users on GrabFood as well as GrabMart, the platform’s grocery delivery service, saw their spending or “average basket size” grow by 84% in 2022 versus pre-pandemic 2019.

“So the exciting thing about that is people aren’t doing just transactions they are actually spending more per transaction. So I think another data point, what we found is more than 50% of transactions on Grab are coming from families,” he said.

Camacho added that “delivery is here to stay” as he shared that Grab is eyeing to launch its food delivery service in new cities.

GrabFood was launched first in Metro Manila in November 2018.

“We have a strong presence in the cities like Cebu, Davao, Bacolod, Iloilo,” Camacho said.

“But even on top of that we are still trying to grow. On top of that we're also launching in new cities,” he said.

The Grab official said GrabFood was recently launched in Cabanatuan City in Nueva Ecija.

“We have a couple of cities that we're going to be launching in the coming months,” he said.

“So it's not just the main city centers, we're really looking for cities that have a potential to be a good delivery city. We're still deliberating now,” he said, adding that Tagbilaran City in Bohol is among the cities that Grab is looking at to launch its food delivery service.

To adapt to the consumer behavior shift following the long pandemic lockdowns, Camacho said Grab developed technology solutions for its merchants such as scan-to-order, self pickup, and find and dine options.

Camacho said Grab has also developed financing support such as quick cashouts, cash loans, and flexible schemes to stimulate business recovery of its partner-merchants.—AOL, GMA Integrated News