Five years on, Grab wants to grab online-to-offline commerce next

Singapore

GRAB - which has in the last five years evolved from a ride-hailing company to a mobile payments platform - plans to disrupt the online-to-offline (O2O) space next. Chief executive Anthony Tan announced the company's ambitions at its fifth anniversary event on Tuesday.

O2O, or O2O commerce, is a business strategy that directs online customers (who are using a website or mobile app) to make a purchase at an offline business (such as a physical store or restaurant). He said: "Yesterday, we disrupted transport. Today, we're starting to disrupt payments. Tomorrow, all the O2O consumer services are waiting to be disrupted."