Heineken, an international brewing company, is teaming up with ride-hailing unicorn Grab. Accordingly, the strategic partnership is an attempt to boost Heineken’s digital marketing penetration in Southeast Asia.
The partnership indubitably benefits beer lovers of legal drinking age in the region. This is so for people will easily get Heineken by one single tap through GrabFood soon.
Additionally, Grab’s delivery service is not the only result of the partnership. Grab enables customers to try new Heineken beers and ciders through promotions as well. Also, Southeast Asian customers can utilize GrabPay as the mobile payment method for Heineken events.
Moreover, Grab app will also contain Heineken’s online specialty store as a new feature. As a return, Grab’s ride-hailing service will become the preferred transportation option for Heineken’s employees throughout the region.
Although the plan is to deepen Heineken’s reach in Southeast Asia, not all Southeast Asian countries would be in effect. So far, the service will hit Singapore and Vietnam at the end of September. The service will also be available in the Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia in the distant future.
Also Read: Grab Major Investment in Vietnam
Heineken in Southeast Asia
In the latest decade, the second biggest brewing company in the world has been on offensive in Asia, specifically its southeastern part. The offensive maneuver has begun since 2012.
In 2012, everything began when Heineken acquired Asia Pacific Breweries, the producer of Tiger beer. It was a tough acquisition for they had to compete against Thai Beverage, Thailand’s biggest brewer.
Frans Eusman, the former president of Heineken’s Asia-Pacific operations, stated that the company’s future depends on Asia as a whole. “Asia is our growth engine, and Heineken’s future depends on it,” he said.
Heineken’s consumption in the region also keeps rising. For instance, in Vietnam, Kirin Holdings’ survey disclosed that 3.83 million kiloliters of beer were consumed in the country in 2015, up 7.7% year-on-year.
Based on the survey, Vietnam ranked ninth in volume and first in annual growth among the 171 countries. Surprisingly, the growth was not the result of local beers consumption. Instead, it was the consumption of Heineken products, which was ten folds the price of local beers at that year.
With that being said, the partnership with Grab sounds promising for the growing influence of Heineken in the region. The joint excites Heineken’s Asia-Pacific president, Dolf van den Brink.
“We are excited to introduce a new level of customer and consumer convenience by partnering with Grab. This initiative, which is very much aligned with our company’s digital transformation, opens a whole world of opportunities for us – from introducing innovative ways of launching new products, to giving consumers new channels to buy our products.”
