Grab has recently announced that it will be expanding its services to several smaller cities and rural townships within the Southern and Northern part of Peninsular Malaysia. For starters, GrabCar will be making its debut in Mersing and Segamat later this month.
Grab also announced that GrabFood and GrabMart will be available at both townships which are located in Johor within the fourth quarter of 2020. Meanwhile, the company has also planned to deploy these services at Baling in Kedah alongside Cameron Highlands in Pahang and Pantai Remis in Perak within the same timeframe.
Timed nicely with the expansion, Grab also pointed out that users who have just signed up as driver-partners for its service are still able to claim one-off reimbursements to offset the costs for their PSV licence and PUSPAKOM vehicle inspection. Under the current terms of Pakej Pikul Bersama, these users will be able to obtain up to RM 120 and RM 70 for their PSV licence and PUSPAKOM costs, respectively.
Based on the announcement, it is quite clear that Grab Malaysia’s latest round of expansion is being done to spread the digital economy agenda to more non-urban areas. However, we do hope that Grab Malaysia would consider providing official reach-out programs and training at these smaller townships which could be a tremendous help for the communities over there and to avoid unwanted opportunists from taking advantage of the expansion in a negative manner.
