Nasdaq-listed superapp Grab posted a profit of $15 million in July-September (Q3) 2024, mainly on account of improvements in group adjusted EBITDA, while revenue grew 17% year-on-year to $716 million, the company announced on Tuesday.
The Southeast Asia tech giant bounced back to profit in Q3 from a $68-million loss in Q2 and a $99-million shortfall a year earlier, as the group’s adjusted EBITDA improved by $62 million year-on-year to an all-time high of $90 million.
Grab booked its first-ever quarterly profit in Q4 2023 but slipped back into the red in the first two quarters of this year.
On a sequential basis, revenue improved by about 8% in Q3 from $664 million in Q2 2024.
The company’s operating loss also narrowed by 59% year-on-year to $38 million in the latest quarter.
“Third quarter 2024 was a strong quarter for us as investments we made across the business drove an acceleration of our on-demand GMV growth,” said Grab CEO and co-founder Anthony Tan.
In its statement, the company said that its gross merchandise value (GMV) grew 15% year-on-year to a record high of $4.66 billion, while group monthly transacting users (MTUs) reached 41.9 million, a 16% growth from a year earlier.
“With the strong momentum we are seeing across the business heading into the end of the year, we expect to deliver sequential on-demand GMV growth in the fourth quarter and are raising our full-year 2024 group revenue and group adjusted EBITDA outlook,” said Peter Oey, Grab’s Chief Financial Officer.
Grab adjusted its full-year 2024 revenue guidance to $2.76-2.78 billion, representing a 17-18% year-on-year growth, versus $2.70-2.75 billion in Q2. Its group-adjusted EBITDA forecast was also raised to $308-313 million from $250-270 million in the previous quarter.
Grab said one of the factors that contributed to its all-time high EBITDA improvement in Q3 was lower regional corporate costs, which dropped to $88 million in the quarter from $97 million in the same period of 2023.
The company said it remains focused on driving cost efficiencies across the organisation, with staff costs within regional corporate costs declining 14% year-on-year in Q3.
Net cash liquidity also improved to $6.1 billion at the end of Q3 from $5.6 billion at the end of Q2, with a substantial portion of the cash inflow attributed to the growth in deposits from customers in the banking business, which increased to over $1 billion from $730 million a quarter earlier.
In Q3, the company repurchased an additional 17.7 million shares for $58.2 million under its $500-million share repurchase programme, bringing the total to 57 million shares repurchased for $189 million as of September 30, 2024.
Grab also posted $338 million net cash from operating activities in Q3, up from $17 million a year earlier. The company said this was mainly driven by increased deposits from customers in the banking business and an improvement in profit before income tax.
The deliveries segment was the largest revenue contributor in the third quarter, generating $380 million, a 13% year-on-year growth on the back of strong GMV growth.
The segment’s GMV grew 12% year-on-year to $2.97 billion, with adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of GMV reaching 1.8% in Q3 2024.
Mobility revenue, meanwhile, surged 17% year-on-year to $271 million, fuelled by a 23% growth in Mobility MTUs and average mobility transactions per MTU, which increased 7% year-on-year.
Its financial services segment also posted a 34% revenue growth year-on-year to $64 million, driven by increased contributions from GrabFin’s lending business, new contributions from its digital bank, and optimisation of payment incentives.
Grab said it continued to focus on lending to its ecosystem partners through GrabFin and its digital bank, with total loans disbursed growing by 38% year-on-year and 13% quarter-on-quarter to $567 million in Q3.
Customer deposits in its digital bank business tripled to $1.1 billion at the of Q3 from $362 million during the same period last year. It grew 50% quarter-on-quarter from $730 million in Q2.
“We are confident about Southeast Asia’s long-term growth and Grab is in pole position to capture the opportunities of growing high-value transactions and strengthening domestic demand,” Tan said.
