KUALA LUMPUR: Capital A’s e-hailing subsidiary AirAsia Ride will launch services in Thailand next month as the parent holding company expands aggressively despite financial losses.
Ride-hailing will commence in the Thai capital Bangkok before expanding to other major cities, said AirAsia Ride regional CEO Lim Chiew Shan.
“We are starting the services with 5,000 taxis,” Lim said at a news conference, adding it would expand to “private drivers after a few months”.
AirAsia Ride, which began in Kuala Lumpur in August, currently covers all major cities in Malaysia with 30,000 registered drivers and monthly bookings in the six digits, Lim said.
AirAsia Ride is part of Capital A, which launched in January and is co-owned by aviation tycoon Tony Fernandes, a founder of budget carrier AirAsia.
Fernandes started focusing on the expansion of non-airline businesses after the coronavirus pandemic paralysed air travel early in 2020.
From an initial step into cargo logistics and online travel agency businesses, he now owns a non-airline empire that spans sectors from food, groceries and restaurants to parcel delivery, insurance and microlending.
AirAsia’s digital business division was valued at US$1 billion (RM4.2 billion) as of July, and Fernandes has said he aspires for it to provide half of the group’s total income in the medium term.
In July, AirAsia announced that AirAsia Digital had acquired Indonesian company Gojek’s operations in Thailand in an all-share deal worth US$50 million (RM210 million) and which included Gojek taking a 5% stake in AirAsia Digital.
Grab has been Malaysia’s dominant e-hailing player since Uber’s exit in 2018. The Singapore-based company commanded over 72% of the local market as of last year, according to the company’s initial public offering documents.
AirAsia’s net loss in 2020 ballooned to RM5.1 billion from RM315.8 million in 2019. Revenue, meanwhile, was RM3.1 billion in 2020, down from RM11.9 billion in 2019, as the full impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and related travel restrictions hit the company.
The situation improved in 2021, with the airline reporting a net loss of RM3.1 billion on the back of RM1.73 billion in revenue.
In January, Bursa Malaysia placed Capital A on watch, demanding that it conduct a financial restructuring within a year or face automatic delisting.
Last week, the Malaysian company was denied a much-anticipated government-backed loan of RM500 million that it had been banking on to fund operations as Southeast Asia rapidly reopens borders for travel and tourism. - FMT
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