KUALA LUMPUR, July 4 — Indonesia-based online grocery platform, HappyFresh will enter the physical retail market segment in Malaysia following its partnership with an international supermarket brand, in a bid to expand and strengthen its foothold in the country deemed as a “very significant market.”

Its group chief operating officer Ronald Chan said the international supermarket brand which he declined to reveal, wants to set up their business in Malaysia, with HappyFresh offering groceries through its platform.

“Malaysia is a quite a developed market when it comes to online groceries, as it has big players in the scene and for us, the Malaysian market is a little bit easier to operate due to its traffic condition as compared with other South-East Asian countries.

“(In terms of growth) I believe we need to do a better job here, but I can say that Malaysian market is very significant to us,” he told Bernama after his presentation on “Building On-Demand Asia At A Click Of A Button” session here today.

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The session was held in conjunction with a regional two-day technology conference, Wild Digital.

Commenting on HappyFresh’s presence in South East Asia, Chan said that his company plans to venture into the Philippines and Vietnam as the two markets are deemed as high potential.

“We did our research for a couple of months and we have been looking at these market and analysing competitors and we decided that the Philippine and Vietnam are quite an attractive market to go into and the timing is right,” he added.

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He reiterated that their plan to expand its footprints in the region’s two fast-growing economies was in line with HappyFresh’s mission to deliver groceries to every single house in the South-East Asian region.

Earlier this year, the company raised US$20 million in funding to stabilise, develop and expand its business and technology platform after a volatile two years which saw it launch and then retreated from the Philippines and Taiwan. — Bernama