Having doubled revenue growth in the first half of this year, Vietnam’s Be Group started to enjoy profitability on the contribution margin basis in Q3 2022 and aims to serve 20 million customers within the next 2-3 years.

From ride-hailing application to multi-service consumer platform

Starting out as a ride-hailing app, Be has aimed to collaborate with domestic and international partners to create an open technology ecosystem in order to expand the on-demand multi-service consumer platform to transportation, delivery, shopping, insurance, telecom service bundles, and digital bank Cake by VPBank while continuing to develop and launch new products.

The services are now present across 28 cities and provinces in Vietnam, processing more than 10 million monthly transactions, with the percentage of customers using more than two services on the platform exceeding 50 percent.

Be claims it is the biggest Vietnamese platform in the transportation category.

In the ride-hailing business specifically, Be has obtained around 30-40 percent market share in Hanoi and 25-35 percent in Ho Chi Minh City.

Besides that, Cake by VPBank -- the cooperation of Be Group and VPBank -- has achieved more than two million customers in less than two years of launch.

Given the current growth trajectory, the digital bank is anticipated to reach three million customers in 2022.

Cake is the first digital bank in Vietnam to provide a full range of essential financial services including payment, savings, lending, micro-investment, and credit cards.

After nearly four years, Be started to enjoy profitability on the contribution margin basis in Q3 2022, having doubled its revenue growth in the first half of this year, said Be’s CEO Vu Hoang Yen.

The company could reach 10 million users next year and its ambition is to serve 20 million customers within the next 2-3 years, according to the CEO.

Operating in a volatile market with constantly changing consumption behavior, the company understands it needs to thrive through forging strategic partnerships, and it looks to work with domestic and international partners to constantly develop and complete the open technology ecosystem.

Most recently, the company received an up to US$100 million loan facility from Deutsche Bank -- a prestigious global and leading financial institution in Germany.

The Deutsche Bank's lending to Be has once again affirmed the Vietnamese company’s credibility and its business model.

Be will use this loan to realize its goal of becoming the leading open technology ecosystem and the No. 1 on-demand multi-service consumer platform for Vietnamese users.

This transaction marks an important milestone for the technology sector in Vietnam amid a deep market correction across the globe, including Asia.

Opportunities for Be Group keep coming up

Vietnam is not immune to the global disruption, particularly the volatility in prices and inflation.

Reckoning the challenges facing partners and users, Be maintains its transparent and reasonable rates, which puts customer interests at best, even when domestic gasoline prices have continued climbing since the start of the year.

In addition, the decisive factor to user loyalty is service quality, which could be maintained stably by the quality of driver partners.

Be encourages drivers to join hands in serving customers through welfare policies for them, from training programs to other benefits via insurance packages enabled by its fintech offerings.