One company pops up fairly frequently. No prizes for guessing which
This year has been marked by a hive of activity across the Southeast Asia tech ecosystem, which is great because it means that the industry is growing at a healthy pace.
While the biggest newsmakers were naturally unicorns such as Grab, which acquired Uber’s operations in the region and expanded its services in its bid to become an all-encompassing WeChat-esque platform, far smaller companies in frontier markets like Myanmar also started to feature more frequently on our site.
Today, we will present to you the 10 most-read articles written by our reporters. Have a look!
Note: the articles are arranged in no particular order.
1. Grab acquires Uber’s assets in Southeast Asia
Ride-hailing giant Grab’s move to buy Uber’s transport and food delivery operations in Southeast Asia was arguably the most watched acquisition in the regional tech ecosystem this year.
Uber received 27.5 per cent stake in Grab as part of the deal, allowing it to focus on its core markets in the US and prepare for an IPO, which it expects to file next year.
2. Tik Tok’s parent company buys Musical.ly
Chinese-based internet company Bytedance grabbed headlines when it announced it would acquire US-based video social network Musical.ly and merge with a similar app of its own, Tik Tok.
This is a fairly significant development for the Southeast Asia internet market as Bytedance has pursued an aggressive expansion strategy to attract more users in the region.
Indonesia is its biggest market in Southeast Asia (although it was temporarily banned). It is building partnerships with local media companies such as Ismaya Live, RCTI, Warner Music Indonesia, Universal Indonesia, Sony Music Indonesia, and Indosat Ooredoo.
Outside of Indonesia, the platform has also helped grow internet celebrities such as Thailand’s YouTube star, Kaykai Salaider. Using Tik Tok, she was able to add at least 1.9 million more fans.
3. Grab acquiring Uber’s data trove is a major red flag
This is an opinion piece by our editor Kevin McSpadden. In it he highlights why Uber users should have the option to opt out of having their personal data transferred to Grab’s platform post-acquisition.
“Some folks may decide they want to change their lifestyle and start using public transportation and street hailing more often,” he said.
He also said that as Grab moves deeper into the financial services space (and other verticals), the utility of this data will naturally move beyond just transportation.
For these users, they are inevitably drawn into a more complex relationship with the company — and without their input; what if this data is one day used to determine their credit worthiness? Can Grab guaranteed that its algorithms won’t be bias?
Also read: The 10 most-read e27 Community articles of 2018
4. How the son of a humble watch repairer became the owner of a multi-million dollar realty tech startup
This is a classic rags-to-riches story. Nay Min Thu is the son of a modest watch repair shop owner in a small town in Myanmar.
Being one of seven siblings, the family’s finances were naturally stretched. So Thu went to Singapore to study while juggling a multitude of odd jobs to support himself.
Today, he’s doing pretty well running a realty tech startup.
Do check out the link above, it’s a great and uninspiring read. If you are an entrepreneur who has fallen into a funk, this story will uplift you — I promise.
5. Grab CEO’s courier stunt is disheartening
Another opinion piece on Grab by our editor Kevin McSpadden — this was pretty controversial.
For context, in October, Anthony Tan, the CEO and Co-founder of Grab, worked as a GrabFood delivery driver for a couple of weeks to better understand the system and its pain points.
While the CEO was able to understand some of the system’s inefficiencies, our editor felt that he had missed the bigger picture: the “huge financial burden” that the contract workers faced.
“Grab treated ‘courier-partners’ as if they are enthusiastic employees working to build a great company. In reality, they are more often a person who really needs money and view companies like Grab as band-aid solution to pay next month’s rent,” he said.
6. Snapcart, an app that gives cashback for receipts, launches in Singapore
Jakarta-based startup Snapcart operates a platform that allows users to receive cashback by scanning their shopping receipts into the app, and this year, it made its debut in Singapore.
Snapcart covers groceries, medicine and cosmetics receipts, and is also available in the Philippines.
I’m guessing this app is probably gaining some decent traction in Singapore if the article is attracting so much views. Maybe it’s because everyone uses smartphones in the country and grocery shopping, like in all countries, is a big part of our everyday lives.
The company raised US$10 million in Series A round of funding last year, led by existing investor Vickers Venture Partners.
7. A gym with a view of the bay: Check out Grab’s awesome new R&D office at Marina One
Grab gave us a little tour of their new office at Marina One. It’s a pretty cool office and being situated near the sea, the views are spectacular. Check out the photos here.
During the tour, the Grab team told us that CEO Anthony Tan is a huge exercise buff and actually does planks while conducting conference calls. Upon hearing that, I ruefully left the office with a deep guilt over my life choices (just kidding, I tore into a high calorie meal afterwards).
Also read: 2018 was a good year for e27, and we look forward to bigger things in store for 2019
8. Southeast Asia is setting itself up for disappointment with Go-Jek entrance
Go-Jek has just soft launched in Singapore, and so far, most people are pretty happy with their low prices (as compared with Grab). But it only offers its Go-Car ride-hailing option and nothing else.
This is a far cry from its Indonesian version, which offers a whole plethora of peripheral services such as manicure, food delivery and massages.
Back in April when rumours were still swirling on when the Go-Jek would arrive in Singapore, our editor argued that the company is facing a tough market, mainly because it will be bleeding money giving out subsidies to entice drivers to use its platform over Grab.
He also argued that if Go-Jek wants to make a serious logistics play like it did in its home base, it will come up against well-established incumbents such as Ninja Van and SingPost.
9. Singapore’s StashAway raises US$5.3M Series A funding round, will launch in new markets
In March, Singapore-based robo advisor platform StashAway raised a cool S$7 million (US$5.3 million) from a group of family offices and individual investors.
The company has raised a total of US$8.4 million. It said will focus on enhancing the platform’s AI tech (which should lead to better automatic investment decisions).
In April 2017, StashAway became the first robo-adviser to receive retail license in Singapore.
On why this article received such widespread attention, my guess is that robo advisors are a burgeoning service in the fintech arena, and that StashAway is one of the first few consumer-facing robo advisors to operate in Southeast Asia.
StashAway is also fairly active in promoting its services; it conducts regular finance workshops to coach users on best financial practices and frequently updates them on the state of the financial markets.
(Disclosure: I’m a StashAway user).
10. Looking under the hood: How Grab’s data science team optimises a fleet of 2.4 million drivers
Grab is a massive company and it manages thousands of drivers and riders across Southeast Asia daily — which is over 10 terabytes of information everyday.
In this article, we spoke to Kong-wei Lye, Grab’s Head of Data Science, to understand how the company optimises its data analytics so that its operations can run smoothly.
“We have automated models that are trained, simulated and optimized to process all data from the Grab app’s users and their environment,” he said. Click on the above link to find out more.
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Image Credit: Marcel De Grijs
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