AirAsia bets on superapp to counter Grab and Gojek

AirAsia Group believes its digital push will drive growth even as its core flight business suffers severe financial losses amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to the head of its online platform. The Malaysia-based budget carrier, which is under pressure to shrink its business throughout Asia, has launched an app aiming to be the "ASEAN superapp for everyone," and not only while flying. The plan brings AirAsia into direct competition with some of the region's leading digital players, including Singapore-based Grab and Indonesian rival Gojek. AirAsia has been bullish on e-commerce and financial technology over the last couple of years, but the pandemic and subsequent border closures have prompted the company to speed up its digital transformation. "We need to start focusing on growth. If we look at the airline for the next maybe 12 to 24 months, it would be about cost containment and rationalization. ... AirAsia.com as the platform is purely about growth," Karen Chan, the CE of AirAsia.com, the travel-tech and lifestyle platform of the airline, said Thursday. While AirAsia is increasing its presence in the region by grabbing market share from other struggling airlines, Chan explained that the focus of its airline business in the near future will be limited to the domestic market in each country it operates, capping its potential for further expansion. AirAsia revealed last week that it had launched what it hopes will be the region's next superapp by unifying its mobile service and websites into a single app, offering e-commerce, deliveries and payments. "We have also now moved into the e-commerce vertical and financial services," Chan said, enabling consumers to enjoy home delivery of duty-free products and also buy products unrelated to travel, such as "potatoes and zucchini." Chan reiterated that the company has the advantage of a customer database of 75m people across the group, gained mainly by its airline business.<br/>