Good day everyone and welcome to today's conference call regarding Grab's agreement to acquire Delivery Hero's foodpanda delivery business in Taiwan. I'm Ken Leck, Head of Strategic Finance and Investor Relations, and joining me today are our Co-Founder and CEO, Anthony Tan, our President and COO, Alex Hungate, and our Group CFO, Peter Oey. We will start today's call with brief remarks from Anthony, Alex, and Peter, followed by a Q&A session after. Before we begin, certain statements on this call may be deemed as forward-looking statements concerning the proposed transactions and other matters related to Grab and foodpanda Taiwan that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements, and we do not undertake any obligation to update them.
For the factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking statements, please refer to the risks and uncertainties included in our SEC filings, including Form 20-F, 6-K, and other filings. Adjusted EBITDA that will be discussed on this call is a non-IFRS financial measure, which has limitations in its use. The non-IFRS financial measures should not be considered in isolation from or as an alternative to financial measures determined in accordance with IFRS. Investors are urged to carefully read the relevant documents to be filed with the SEC in their entirety when they become available, as they will contain important information about the proposed transaction and related matters. For more information on the proposed transaction, you may find the press release, related Form 6-K, investor presentation, and any other materials concerning the transaction on investors.grab.com.
With that, let me hand it over to Anthony to provide his strategic thoughts on the transaction.
Thanks, Ken, and thank you all for joining us today as we announce this milestone transaction for Grab. We're very proud to announce that we have just signed an agreement to acquire Delivery Hero's food delivery business in Taiwan in an all-cash transaction valued at $600 million. This acquisition marks Grab's expansion into Taiwan, our ninth market and first outside of Southeast Asia. I'm personally very excited about this acquisition. I've had the privilege of spending time in Taiwan several times over the years, and every trip has only deepened my conviction that this is the right market at the right time for Grab. What strikes me most is how culturally familiar Taiwan feels. There are deep ties between Southeast Asia and Taiwan, particularly for those of us from the Chinese diaspora communities.
I grew up speaking Hokkien as a Hokkien boy, and it is our Chinese dialect. You know, when you walk through the night markets in Taipei or you're chatting with merchants in Tainan, you realize just how much we share in common, the language, the food, the culture, and the way people live and eat. That cultural proximity matters. It allows us to better understand our users, and it means our teams can connect authentically with local partners. Of course, conviction alone does not make a good deal. Let me walk you through why the data is equally compelling. First, urban density. Taiwan has a huge demand for mobile-first services, very similar to Southeast Asian consumers we serve every single day, but with a massive operational advantage. Taipei's urban density is 3.6 x larger than our Southeast Asian average.
For those of you who follow our business closely, you know what density means for us. More efficient allocation, shorter delivery trips, and far greater utilization of our delivery fleet. Our long-standing expertise in managing complex delivery logistics for dense, high-traffic cities is a direct fit for Taiwan. Second, spending power. Outside of Singapore, Taiwan is the highest income market in our entire regional footprint, with almost seven in 10 users already using food delivery apps in 2025. Third, a key demographic fair tailwind. Today, over four in 10 households in Taiwan are single-person residences. We are perfectly positioned to capitalize on this solo economy, serving a demographic that treats food delivery as a daily recurring utility, driving high-frequency volumes right onto our platform.
To bring it all together, Taiwan gives us a density for efficient operations, the income for larger baskets, and a household structure for recurring demand. On a personal level, having spent time on the ground, I can tell you the energy and opportunity in this market are hard to overstate. I look forward to realizing the potential of what we can build. Now, entering Taiwan would be a significant expansion of our deliveries addressable market, and we are also optimistic for the trajectory this market is on. Let me take a step back and talk about the macroeconomic potential because I think it's critical context for this deal. Taiwan's economy grew 9% in 2025, its strongest growth in 15 years. That surge was driven by booming exports and rising demand for AI applications. This is not a one-off.
Taiwan's central bank just raised its 2026 GDP growth forecast to 7%, citing robust exports and rising private investment during the AI boom. Taiwan sits at the absolute center of the global AI and semiconductor supply chain. TSMC alone, for example, is planning to invest over $50 billion in CapEx this year to meet AI chip demand. That level of investment is pulling in talent, creating jobs, and driving wealth creation across the entire supply chain and economy. Now, what does this mean for us? It means we're entering a market where consumer spending and power is accelerating. More high-income workers, more dual-income households with limited time to cope, more demand for convenience. That all flows directly into food delivery. We're entering this market through an asset of real scale.
foodpanda Taiwan generated $1.8 billion in GMV across just 21 high-density cities in 2025. When you compare that to our footprint of over 900 cities across Southeast Asia, the concentration of value is remarkable. This is a compact, high-yield asset. Amid this, user penetration today is just 10%. Having spent time on the ground, I can tell you the appetite for delivery services is enormous. With the macro tailwinds I just described, rising incomes, urbanization, a booming tech sector, that 10% has a very long way to go. That gives us a massive runway to deploy our proven product innovations and efficiency playbooks to drive penetration significantly higher. Taking a step back, this move drives a 20% step change to our delivery's addressable market.
We're adding over $40 billion from Taiwan to our $200 billion base in Southeast Asia. By bringing Taiwan into the fold, our combined food delivery addressable market grows to over $240 billion. In short, we're not just acquiring a leading delivery platform in Taiwan. We're entering a market that is on the steepest economic growth curve in the region, with rising consumer spend and a massive untapped delivery opportunity. The timing could not be better. I'm genuinely thrilled about what we can build here. We're gonna unlock tremendous value for partners and users in Taiwan by bringing the exact same relentless focus on affordability, reliability, and tech-led product innovation that has driven our success in Southeast Asia. As you can see from our track record, since integrating Uber's Southeast Asia food delivery operations in 2018, we have continuously expanded our footprint.
We launched GrabMart, we scaled GrabExpress, we rolled out product-led innovations like GrabUnlimited and tiered delivery options that have all resulted in our deliveries GMV growth re-accelerating to over 21% year-on-year in our most recent quarter. In that time, we've grown from nothing to having onboarded over 6 million merchant partners to our ecosystem, generated over $7 billion in earnings for these merchant partners in 2025 alone, made several strategic acquisitions adjacent to food delivery, and most importantly, doubled down on product innovation to drive a re-acceleration in deliveries growth. With this acquisition, we look to do exactly the same. We wanna transform Taiwan's food delivery business into one where we create tremendous value for our partners and users while working hand in hand with the government and regulators to make this a thriving industry.
Whether it is deploying our AI-first partner tools, including GrabMaps and our AI Merchant Assistant, to unlock significant new earning opportunities for partners across Taiwan or embedding our full deliveries product suite to elevate the user experience and raise the bar on reliability and convenience in this market. Before passing it on to Alex, who will share more about our plans in Taiwan, I want to reiterate that this is a milestone moment for Grab. We are entering our ninth market and our first outside of Southeast Asia with a market-leading asset in one of the most dynamic economies in the world. We have the playbook, we have the product, and we have the conviction in out-serving our partners in Taiwan, continue to drive value for our shareholders, for fellow Grabbers, and for the foodpanda Taiwan team. Alex, over to you.
Thank you, Anthony. As Anthony highlighted, the scale that we are acquiring here is substantial. In particular, one of the first things we were impressed by when evaluating this asset is its user reach by city. As you can see from this slide, foodpanda Taiwan has a user reach of over 67%. We are buying a platform that comes with a loyal customer base, so we don't have to fight to build up awareness. Now, let's dig one layer deeper and the economics get even more interesting. 1/3 foodpanda users is a pandapro subscriber. This is a highly valuable cohort. This subscriber base alone drives over 50% of foodpanda Taiwan's total GMV, demonstrating superior lifetime value and user loyalty. Pandapro subscribers order 3x more frequently than non-subscribers, and this user base is especially attractive to merchants.
In fact, those merchants who participated in the pandapro program in 2025 benefited from up to a 4x increase in order growth. Now let's review the geographical distribution. In Kaohsiung and other tier two cities, user reach exceeds 70%, while in the major cities, Taipei at 63% and New Taipei at 58%, there is more room to grow. These high-density cities are the most similar in characteristics to those in Southeast Asia. We are confident that we can bring improved service to eaters while growing earning opportunities for our driver and merchant partners. I called this slide the magical slide when I shared it at the fourth quarter earnings last month. It is magical because it shows how in Southeast Asia, Grab has consistently improved driver earnings over time, while reducing pricing for consumers at the same time.
That's a magical combination, very rarely seen. As a reduction in fares for passengers by over 16% simultaneously led to a sharp uplift in volumes, thereby driving improvements in driver earnings by 29% over the last five years. This demonstrates that we can successfully leverage our tech to allow drivers to complete more trips in less time and improve their earning opportunities without relying upon higher fares. It is extremely difficult for smaller competitors who lack our network density and tech investments to keep up with this improvement in price performance. We will aim to execute on a similar product-led strategy in Taiwan. For merchants, our AI assistant delivers actionable insights to improve sales and streamline operations. Today, many merchants on foodpanda are still managing menus, pricing, and promotions manually.
We will provide them with tools that do this intelligently, from automating menu updates, optimizing returns on promotions and advertising spend, and surfacing real-time performance insights. These capabilities have already been tested and proven at scale across 900+ cities in Southeast Asia. With these tools, Grab will create value for the millions of users across Taiwan while delivering the one outcome that matters most to our partners, and that is sustained earnings. Now the real work starts here. We have a clear integration roadmap and the product toolkit to optimize this market at scale. Our teams are fully mobilized to drive marketplace efficiency from day one. With that, I'll turn it over to Peter to share the details of the transaction.
Thanks, Alex. We're acquiring 100% of foodpanda Taiwan from Delivery Hero for $600 million on a cash-free and debt-free basis, subject to customary closing adjustments, which values the business at a multiple of 0.33x 2025 EV/GMV. This transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and applicable regulatory approvals. We expect closing to be in the second half of 2026. Also, as a part of this transaction, we have entered into a support services agreement under which Delivery Hero will provide transition support services to foodpanda Taiwan post-closing. On integration, what we're targeting is a full platform migration of users, our merchant partners in Taiwan, and also our driver partners from the foodpanda app to the Grab app by early 2027.
Now, as part of this, we will bring in our AI-first partner tools, including GrabMaps, our proprietary hyperlocal mapping technology, and also our AI Merchant Assistant to improve the partner earning opportunities. We'll also embed Grab's expanded deliveries product suite into the new app to enhance the consumer experience in Taiwan. Now, turning to the guidance, there is no change as we continue to reiterate our 2026 Adjusted EBITDA target of $700 million-$720 million. Subject to the closing timeline, the transaction will also be accretive to our 2026 group revenue guidance of $4.04 billion-$4.10 billion.
As we look ahead, we expect the foodpanda Taiwan business to be accretive to our three-year Adjusted EBITDA outlook of $1.5 billion by 2028, and we expect it to contribute at least $60 million in incremental Adjusted EBITDA in that year alone. To wrap up, this acquisition represents a disciplined, strategic move that is consistent with how we have built Grab's deliveries business over the past eight years. We are acquiring a strong asset in a structurally attractive market, one with high urban density, strong consumer spending power, and a fast-growing economy. We have a proven integration playbook that has been sharpened by our prior acquisitions, and also a differentiated product suite that we believe we can unlock more meaningful growth in a culturally complementary market to Southeast Asia.
This acquisition is right in line with our capital allocation strategy, where we look to expand our addressable market opportunity and also maximize free cash flow generation in the long term. We're really excited about what Taiwan means for Grab, for our partners, and for our shareholders, and we can't wait to get started together with the foodpanda Taiwan team. I will now pass the time back to Ken, who will moderate the Q&A session. Ken?
Thank you, Peter. As a reminder to everyone, please submit your questions to investor.relations@grab.com. We'll now begin the Q&A session. We have gathered a number of very interesting questions, so thank you all for submitting them ahead of time. Our first question, this one is probably directed at you, Peter, it's all about Taiwan financials. Can management firstly elaborate on the growth and margin outlook for Taiwan's and specify the key levers and timeline to achieve the 60 million Adjusted EBITDA target by 2028? Second, explain how these drivers and the associated risk mitigations supported the deal consideration and purchase price, despite your disclosures signaling that profit is potentially thin, after allocating group costs. Thirdly, whether the business can get towards the group delivery's 4% long-term target going forward.
Our question is submitted by three analysts, Divya from Morgan Stanley, Ranjan from JPMorgan, and Venu from Bernstein. Peter, over to you.
Okay. All right. It's a lot in there. Let me unpack it. You've heard me many times in other earnings calls or investor meetings that we always have a high bar when it comes to inorganic growth, and this is no different. On this particular transaction, what we looked at was our ability to both deliver expanding our addressable market and the market opportunity with the price we eventually paid for this deal. Let's fully focus on the growth opportunity. Now, Anthony spoke a lot about the market, the Taiwan market, and also the consumer spending pattern. We are very optimistic about the market opportunity on what the growth and we can unlock in the multiple years that we have ahead of us. The macroeconomic environment also is very highly constructive and also just the whole culture.
We see a lot of synergies with our own products that we've built here in Southeast Asia and the consumer base, one where Taiwan also can adopt and adapt also. There's just a lot of correlation in terms of synergies and how we can actually unlock that growth, in terms of consumer pattern, in terms of also penetrating new cities, and also penetrating where folks are not using food delivery currently today. A lot of opportunities on growth. Now, on costs, what we expected in 2026 and 2027, which is not unusual, is that there'll be some one-off costs related to these integration efforts. A lot of these costs will be front-loaded, especially as we migrate the app from the foodpanda app to the Grab app itself.
There will be a period of time where in roughly until the end of the year or early 2027, where the foodpanda app will still be operating, and that's where the transition services support we'll get from Delivery Hero. However, in the background, we're continuing to get our tech ready for that migration to come across, and we're targeting for in the very early 2027. Those costs will be front-loaded, and that will be part of the unification of tech and logistics stack. What we see is that before the business towards the end of 2027 to be turning profitable by that timeframe. Now, I can confirm that we still expect our group deliveries margin to improve.
Our group deliveries margin to improve year-on-year in 2026 and in 2027 as well as we continue to find cost levers and cost efficiency just in our overall deliveries business in Southeast Asia. The $60 million EBITDA outlook that you see in 2028 is a combination of these efforts to continue that growth in that market, which we feel very convicted we can unlock, and also balancing this healthy level of profitability with costs and also continuing to unlock margin in the Taiwan business and also lifetime value of this user base. We have the view that beyond 2028, Taiwan has the potential to improve towards becoming a 4%+ market deliveries margin for us, which is very similar to our other markets in Southeast Asia. Hopefully, that answers the question.
It will be the building block in terms of how we think about how we value this particular business and also how we are gonna continue the financial profile, especially over the next three years.
Thank you, Peter. The next question comes from Alicia Yap from Citi. Alicia's very curious, you know, once we have integrated deliveries in Taiwan onto the Grab app, will we consider also launching mobility and fintech-related services in the country? Alex, I believe this is a question for you.
Thanks, Alicia. Well, our immediate priority has to be right now on the successful integration of the foodpanda operations. We wanna win the trust of the millions of eaters in the Taiwan market and then work closely with the drivers and the merchants to help grow their earnings opportunities and to get to know the government and the regulators in that market. We have a lot to do and really very focused on this acquisition at this time. Obviously, if we're successful with that, then this does bring more options for the future, but that's really not our focus today, so I won't comment on that. Thank you.
All right. Next question also from Alicia and also from Wei Fang from Macquarie. Question for you, Peter. Looking beyond the Taiwan market, which other potential regional markets does management consider attractive, considering that Grab's recent entry into two developed markets, notably the U.S. and Taiwan, and integrate a strategic shift towards new geographies? Instead of developing our presence in Southeast Asia. Peter, a question for you.
Yeah, sure. Look, Southeast Asia continues to be very, very important to us. We still have more cities that we wanna enter. There's still a lot more product opportunities that we wanna introduce into the marketplace. We're not by saying anything that we are not focusing on Southeast Asia. If anything, we're gonna double down also in Southeast Asia. Now, at the same time also, and you've heard me on previous calls around our capital allocation framework, and that has not changed whatsoever, and we're always prioritizing the organic growth. Now, when we do see opportunities on the inorganic side like this one, we will deploy our balance sheet. Now, what makes this asset special is on a couple of things. If you look at where we've made inorganic growth, where has it been? I'll give you an example. One of that is on capabilities.
A recent one a few weeks ago when we announced the acquisition of Stash, which is over in the United States, was really looking at the capability set that we don't have today on micro-investing. Also it happens to be in a very, very strong constructive market also with great opportunity. We've also made acquisitions where we wanna widen the addressable market, some of these adjacent to the products that we have today. A great example of that is our supermarkets, where we've added those adjacencies into our deliveries, and that has continued to thrive. This one in Taiwan is about new geography, and we believe that we can by what Anthony has mentioned, our market TAM has expanded by extra $40 billion in terms of capturing this opportunity for us.
We believe that making this a strategic asset is an important one in widening that TAM base. We continue to maintain a high bar when it comes to inorganic activity that we pursue. That's one thing that I will continue to commit to our shareholders. We continue to have a very healthy net cash liquidity. In fourth quarter, we said that we reported $5.3 billion, and we will continue to use our cash judiciously. Hopefully that answers the question.
Okay. Moving on to the next question from John Choi from Daiwa. This is a regulatory question for you, Alex. Have you had preliminary discussions with the regulator in Taiwan prior to this deal, given that foodpanda previously did not get approval from the regulators when Uber tried to buy them out? The analyst is curious whether this would happen again in our case.
Right. Okay. Thanks, John. Yeah, building a strong partnership with regulators in our markets is always a key priority for us. I guess the key difference between the deal that you referred to and this deal is that this is a new market entry for Grab. Our commitment is to outserve customers, merchants and partners, as I just mentioned. It's a blank sheet of paper, basically, a new investment into the country from Grab. We look forward to a transparent and productive dialogue with the regulators to demonstrate that this move ultimately will benefit Taiwanese consumers and enhance competition in the market.
Thank you, Alex. The next one comes from two analysts. It comes from Divya from Morgan Stanley and Venu from Bernstein. It's a question for you, Anthony, about our Uber relationship. This deal puts Grab in direct competition with Uber, who's our largest shareholder with a 14% shareholding. The question is whether you can clarify how conflicts of interest could arise going forward, and does it create a risk of Uber potentially selling down over time?
Great question, Divya. Number one is I don't see any changes. Uber remains a strategic partner. Our relationship with Uber has always been built on a foundation of mutual respect and a shared vision for growing the digital economy. While our relationship with Uber remains unchanged and they remain a valued long-term shareholder, our primary fiduciary duty is to all our shareholders and driving long-term value creation for our ecosystem in all the countries that we serve. Now, from a regulatory standpoint, I've been a founder of Grab since the beginning, and we will always make decisions that are in the best interest of our partners, consumers and Grabbers. We hence believe this transaction is a win-win. It's a win-win-win, I would say, for the Taiwan ecosystem and all our Grabbers and the foodpanda Taiwan team.
Our focus is on bringing more innovation, better tech, and higher earnings opportunities to the market. We look forward to a transparent, productive dialogue with the regulators in Taiwan to demonstrate how this move ultimately benefits Taiwanese consumers and enhances competition.
We have time for one last question, and this question comes from a couple of analysts, Divya from Morgan Stanley, as well as Jiong Shao from Barclays. It's a tangential question, not directly related to this deal, but somewhat related, and it links to the ongoing energy crisis we are seeing across the world. Question is for you, Alex. Given the ongoing energy crisis and eventual fallout on demand, why does management remain confident in reiterating its 2026 EBITDA guidance? How has this impacted your business, particularly with rising fuel prices hitting driver earnings in particular?
Okay, thanks for the question there, Divya. Yes, I understand this is a very hot topic, and it's timely and happy to take that as part of this Q&A this evening. Firstly, I can confirm we've had a strong start to the year. That's important. We're monitoring the situation very closely, though, with the fuel price increases now starting to seep into the region. We have experienced similar spike ups, particularly most recently, the Ukraine crisis in 2022. We have a playbook through which we can assist our drivers during such situations to try to buffer the fuel increases for them. In the short term, we are stepping in with targeted fuel subsidies for drivers that really protect our supply in peak areas and peak times.
However, if higher oil prices do continue to persist, then in the medium term, we may need to assess to consider passing on some of those costs to our consumers. We'll do that very carefully to manage to make sure we don't impact demand. To help with any sudden cash flow issues, we are extending beyond fuel price impact. We will collaborate with strategic partners, like energy partners, to secure institutional fuel discounts for our drivers and also collaborate with local governments to ensure that those ride-hailing drivers are included in national fuel subsidy programs. I guess in the longer term, to really completely answer the question, to reduce the ecosystem's exposure to fuel price volatility, we continue to be a catalyst for the transition to EVs in the region.
We are accelerating our EV roadmap, and we'll continue to develop hyperlocal routing technology based on GrabMaps to reduce the driver idle time and maximize fuel efficiency by directing them at the right moments to available charging stations.
With that, we've come to the end of our Q&A session. Thank you, Anthony, Alex, and Peter. I'll now hand it over to Peter to deliver his closing remarks.
Thanks, everyone, for dialing into the call. I know it's last minute, and all, for your questions. As I mentioned in my remarks, we are really excited about this transaction and what Taiwan really means for Grab and also just for our partners over in Taiwan and also for our shareholders. We just can't wait to get started together with the foodpanda Taiwan team. If you have any further questions, please reach out to the IR team. You know how to reach out to them. Thank you again for making the time to make this call, and have a great night or day ahead of you. Thank you, everyone.