According to a TechinAsia article, airasia Digital, the digital arm of the Malaysia-based budget airline operator, has cancelled plans to buy Velox Fintech, a subsidiary of Gojek Thailand, for US $10 million.
The grounds for this have not been revealed in the company’s documents. According to AirAsia’s third-quarter 2021 filings, the firm completed the acquisition of Velox Technology, another Gojek Thailand subsidiary, for US $40 million.
The purchase of Velox Technology was fully authorised on July 27. A total of $30.8 million in goodwill was generated as a consequence of the transaction. It did, however, have to adhere to a 12-month purchase price allocation exercise.
On July 7, airasia announced intentions to purchase Gojek’s Thai business for a total of $50 million in order to accelerate the rollout of the airasia Super App across ASEAN. It would also allow Gojek to spend more in its operations in Vietnam and Singapore.
The arrangement included the transfer of shares between the two companies. Gojek would gain a stake in the airasia super app, which has a market worth of over $1 billion.
Airasia, which was founded in 2001, is a one-stop travel, e-commerce, and financial platform with over 15 product lines. Its digital arm takes advantage of the company’s physical and digital assets to build a network of businesses that engage with customers in their daily lives.
It is made up of three key digital companies:
1) airasia Super App, which is a lifestyle platform for travel, e-commerce, financial services, farm to table, health, and edutech products and services;
2) Teleport, an e-commerce logistics company that provides instant door-to-door deliveries; and
3) BigPay, the fintech arm.
The airasia-Gojek agreement was expected to ratchet up the competition for the top super app spot, since Grab, which also calls itself a super app, is far ahead of the competition.
