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Vietnam food delivery market: ShopeeFood profits 850 billion, revenue equal to Grab's passenger and delivery

Ahamove launched Lala in late 2017 in the food delivery market, competing directly with GrabFood and Now, but closed after more than 1 year of launch, unable to withstand the heat from the "money-burning" race.



Besides e-commerce and ride-hailing, the food delivery market in Vietnam is also one of the most exciting playgrounds in the region, attracting a series of "big players" to participate.


The "money-burning" battle column in the food delivery sector


According to a report by Momentum Works, the total value of goods (GMV) on food delivery platforms in Vietnam in 2023 reached 1.4 billion USD, the strongest growth in Southeast Asia with an increase of 27%, while other markets only grew in single digits. The data was compiled from 4 platforms Grab, ShopeeFood, Baemin, and Gojek.


Although it is so lucrative, this is also a "money-burning" battle that even Mr. Niklas Ostberg, co-founder and CEO of Delivery Hero - the parent company of Baemin - once commented that it would "never be profitable".


After that announcement, Baemin also decided to withdraw from the Vietnamese market even though it accounted for 5% of the total GMV in the market (in 2023).


Most recently, Ahamove is known to be making a new game in the Food sector - a field where this business failed with the Lala project 6 years ago. With this new comeback, Ahamove declared war with the ambition of a 20% market share.


Shopee reaches the finish line


Vietdata's data shows that there has been a unit that has "reached the finish line" in that seemingly endless battle. In 2023, ShopeeFood's net revenue reached 4,000 billion VND, an increase of more than 100% compared to 2022.


ShopeeFood's direct competitor is GrabFood - a unit of the "giant" Grab. But ShopeeFood's revenue figure is even equal to that of Grab Vietnam (including delivery, food delivery, passenger transportation, etc.).



Along with that, after-tax profit also grew strongly, reaching nearly 850 billion VND. The strong change in business helped ShopeeFood significantly improve its financial situation, after 4 years of being part of SEA Group.



ShopeeFood, formerly known as Foody, was founded by Mr. Dang Hoang Minh in 2012. It is a social network that specializes in providing reviews of restaurants in big cities such as Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Da Nang. In 2016, Foody launched DeliveryNow.


In 2017, SEA acquired Foody for about 64 million USD and renamed Now to ShopeeFood.


In addition to ShopeeFood, SEA's cool hand is also shown in Shopee when this unit's revenue jumped 70% to 18,000 billion VND, continuing to top the list in 2023. After-tax profit reached more than 1,400 billion VND, the highest in the group despite decreasing by half compared to 2022.


Grab is known as a "giant", a world-leading technology company headquartered in Singapore. In Vietnam, Grab entered Vietnam early in late 2014 and currently holds the largest market share in ride-hailing in Vietnam.


In 2018, Grab attracted a lot of attention when it acquired its direct competitor at that time, Uber, at the end of March and became the "monopoly" in this potential market.


To get the "throne", Grab also had to pay the price of continuous losses for many years. In 2023, Grab made a profit for the first time.


Ahamove has not given up yet


"Ahamove will not repeat the previous failure", Mr. Pham Huu Ngon - CEO of Ahamove - shared. It is known that Ahamove is a company of Commerce (formerly known as Giao Hang Nhanh), established in 2015.


Facing the heat of the Food Delivery market at that time, Ahamove with its strength in on-demand delivery launched Lala at the end of 2017, competing directly with GrabFood and Now (the original name of ShopeeFood). However, Lala closed after more than 1 year of launch, when it could not withstand the heat from the "money-burning" race.


In this comeback, Ahamove chose the direction through AI applications on third-party platforms such as Facebook Messenger. According to the introduction, an AI Chatbot will be integrated into the Facebook page of each restaurant, supporting the entire process of ordering automatically for users, including sending menus, consulting dishes, getting address/phone number information and calculating the total order value.


After the user confirms the order, Chatbot simultaneously notifies the restaurant to prepare the order and dispatch Ahamove drivers to deliver the goods. Ahamove estimates that the consultation process will take place in 2 minutes and the delivery will take place in about 15 minutes.


AhaFood has been deployed in Da Nang with 500 restaurants and is testing in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to expand the market. In the near future, merchants (sellers) can also create video content, helping them integrate with channels such as Facebook, Zalo, Telegram, etc. Merchants only need to focus on the preparation stage.


With this direction, AhaFood is positioned as an AI solution provider for merchants, not taking on the role of a third platform in the Food sector. Mr. Ngon estimates that Ahamove can take up 20% of the food delivery market share in the next 2-3 years.

(markettimes.vn)


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