Racing In The Streets

Singapore’s Grab And Indonesia’s Go-jek Started Out As Scrappy Taxi Services. Now They’re Expanding Into Banking, Groceries, And More—and Jockeying To Offer The Top “super-app” In Some Of The World’s Fastest-growing Economies.

- Clay Chandler

WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM.

THAT’S THE IDEA BEHIND ICE CREAM DAY, a promotion launched by Uber Technologies in 2012. The rideshare giant courts customers by allowing them, for one day each summer, to arrange instant dessert delivery through the Uber app. But in June 2015, as the American powerhouse expanded that campaign across 53 countries, Malaysian entrepreneur Anthony Tan saw a chance to cast Uber as an outsider—and burnish the appeal of his homegrown ride-hailing venture, Grab.

Just after Uber’s event, Grab offered what Malaysians really scream for: smelly durians. Customers in Kuala Lumpur, the capital, could have one of the pungent fruits rushed to their doorstep by a Grab driver. To deliver on that promise, Grab had to devise special packaging: Durians, though considered a great delicacy, emit an odor so overpowering that they are banned in many airports and hotels. Grab surmounted that obstacle and offered the fruits at the bargain price of a single ringgit (24¢). They sold out almost immediately, and the “GrabDurian” marketing coup is now well into its fourth year. “No foreigner would have thought to do that,” chortles Tan. Uber, he says, “couldn’t fully appreciate how local you needed to go” to win in Southeast Asia.