The Strategist

Toyota to invest $ 1 billion in Grab taxi service



06/13/2018 - 11:14



Japanese Toyota Motor Corp agreed to invest $ 1 billion in the Singapore online taxi order service Grab as the lead investor in the current round of financing the company, Reuters reports. This is the largest amount ever invested by an automaker in an online taxi order service, Grab said in a statement.



pexels
pexels
Previously, the Japanese SoftBank Group Corp and the Chinese taxi service Didi Chuxing invested in the Singapore start-up. Toyota's investments will allow Grab to further expand the range of services, such as product delivery and digital payments, in Southeast Asia.

Grab will be estimated at just over $ 10 billion after Toyota's investment, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters. Top-manager Toyota will be appointed to the board of directors of Grab, and a member of the Toyota team will become the executive director of the Singapore company.

This deepens Toyota's partnership with Grab after the earlier, undisclosed investment of the automaker's sales division last year.

Toyota installed its DVRs on some of the cars that Grab manages to use the collected data to analyze driving models and develop vehicle services.

The automaker said on Wednesday that, by deepening the partnership, it hopes to connect to the fleet of Grab rental cars throughout Southeast Asia and offer financial, insurance and services to drivers based on data collected on its platform. "In the future, together with Grab, we will develop services that are more attractive and safe for our customers in Southeast Asia," said Toyota ‘s executive vice president Shigeki Tomoyama.

The Grab application was downloaded in more than 100 million mobile devices, and the company registers more than 6 million trips a day.

South Korean company Hyundai Motor Co and Japanese Honda Motor Co Ltd also previously financed Grab.

Earlier in March, Uber announced the merger of its unit in Southeast Asia with Grab. Uber received a 27.5% stake in the combined company.

source: reuters.com




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