Khairani Afifi Noordin Wed, Jun 08, 2022
Superapp Grab has launched GrabMaps, a new enterprise service which allows businesses to leverage its location-based intelligence and technology.
With the launch, Grab is able to tap into the US$1 billion market opportunity in Southeast Asia per year for mapping and location-based services — although it does not have any specific revenue goals currently, according to Grab head of Geo Philipp Kandal.
Grab expects to be fully-self-sufficient with GrabMaps by Q32022. While it will no longer be dependent on paid map and location-based services from third party providers, it will continue to use OpenStreetMap as its base layer map via an Open Database License.
First developed for in-house use, GrabMaps was created to address its need for a more hyperlocal solution to power its services. “The back alleys and narrow side streets common across Southeast Asia cities often don’t show up on conventional maps, but are navigated by our driver and delivery partners every day,” said Grab cofounder Tan Hooi Ling.
“We’ve invested to turn this intelligence into a competitive advantage, allowing us to serve our users and partners with a great experience, at the same time driving efficiency and cost-savings for the business,” she added.
Today, GrabMap is powering more than 800 billion application programming interface (API) calls per month across a variety of Grab services. It offers a 4x lower error rate and 10x lower latency, according to a benchmark study of its performance versus a leading third party provider.
GrabMaps is built by leveraging its consumers, merchants as well as fleet of driver and delivery partners. Its solutions draw from fresh data from millions of orders and rides served daily, with real-time feedback from partners on road closures and business address changes, among others.
As a business-to-business (B2B) solution, Grab offers base map data as a service, allowing enterprises to license its data such as places, roads and imagery. It also offers map making — an end-to-end stack that enterprises can leverage to build their own maps, made possible with its proprietary map-making camera, Kartacam.
APIs and mobile software development kits are services that Grab plans to launch later in 2022 and in 2023 respectively. The services will allow developers and teams to enhance or build their own applications and geolocation capabilities leveraging GrabMaps technology, such as routing, search, traffic and navigation features.
Shares in Grab closed 1 US cent higher or 0.38% up on June 7 at US$2.65.
