Grab’s results exceeded expectations, but Indonesia delivered a crushing blow at the last minute

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Grab’s results exceeded expectations, but Indonesia delivered a crushing blow at the last minute

Disclaimer: Unless otherwise stated, any opinions expressed below are solely the author’s.

In an increasingly common pattern, Grab recently posted strong results for Q1 2026, seeing its profits grow by 24% compared to 2025. The results exceeded analyst expectations, and turned last year’s loss of US$21 million into a profit of US$22 million—but you’d be hard-pressed to see it reflected in the company’s stock performance.

This is despite the fact that it has reached its first profitable year since its establishment, earning US $ 200 million by 2025.

Instead of a rally, following the transition from a cash-strapped startup to a mature, stable business, Grab has lost nearly a quarter of its value over the past 12 months and is down nearly 45% from its peak last September.

Grab’s stock performance over the past year./ Image Credit: Google

Grab’s stock performance over the past five years./ Image Credit: Google.

In fact, the company is now trading at roughly the same levels it was in 2022, when revenue was less than half of what it is today, and it was still burning billions every year to fund growth.

So why doesn’t Grab seem to be breaking through the roof it’s been riding on since its US$40 billion IPO in 2021?

Chasing a moving target

Starting out as a regional version of Uber, Grab has transformed itself (like many similar companies) into superapp business, based on the promise that you can do much more than hail a taxi with your smartphone.

But despite its rapid growth and newly minted profits, operationally, Grab remains primarily about ordering rides and deliveries. Its financial services division still needs more investment and is currently losing money, although its loan portfolio has more than doubled in the past year.

Grab’s financial services show promise, but are currently losing money./ Photo Credit: Grab

In other words, even after taking Uber’s stake in Southeast Asia in 2018, as of 2026, the superapp dream is still just that—a dream.

This is because whenever a competitor disappears, another appears, as Gojek did shortly after Uber’s exit.

Since then the two companies have been locked in a similar civil war, which has kept margins low, preventing meaningful growth for both.

And for as long as they’ve been fighting, rumors have swirled about their upcoming acquisition or merger, which was first discussed in 2020.

The topic resurfaced last year as talks are reportedly still ongoing for early 2026, despite the roadblocks, although the main concern remains the ruling position the coalition would enjoy.

Indonesia holds the deciding vote

The reason for the transaction is very simple: one company can work more efficiently, save money on unnecessary marketing costs, allowing it to focus on investing in new services.

The problem for national regulators is the fact that if it happens, the Grab-GoTo behemoth will have a market share of more than 90% in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, and a large share in Thailand and Vietnam.

As a result, they are less likely to approve it unless the company provides strict controls on how it prices its services to prevent fraud. That, however, can make all the work worthless if you are barred from receiving rewards and remain bound by local laws.

Indonesia, an important government that should light the deal (since GoTo is an Indonesian company), may have just made the whole deal work a little bit, after President Prabowo announced a few days ago that the country will remove the high commissions charged to users of the applications from 20 to only 8%.

The decision calls into question the financial sense of a possible merger, although, depending on how badly it affects Gojek, it may force GoTo to push through the deal as it faces a sharp decline in internal revenue.

What worked for both businesses, however, was to lower the market prices of the respective stocks in the following days. That’s why Grab, despite all its achievements, continues to trade below analyst expectations and is as high as it was three to four years ago, when it was still a hot-money growth stock.

Low margins, cutthroat competition and regulatory uncertainty continue to dampen investor sentiment, and may remain so until the company begins to show profitability in its other initiatives.