Grab hit by 'service disruption' as users in Southeast Asia report app is down

SINGAPORE: Grab said it was hit by a "service disruption" on Tuesday (Nov 16) morning, with some users in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand reporting that ride-hailing and food delivery services were down.

"Our teams are working hard to fix this and we will provide updates as they become available. We apologise for the inconvenience," the Singapore-based company told CNA at around 10.20am.

Affected users were seen commenting on Grab's Facebook page from around 8am, saying they were unable to search for locations and book rides on the app.

Among them was a user based in Bangkok who said ride-hailing locations had not been available on the app for the past hours.

Other commenters said the app was down not just for passengers but also drivers, who were unable to receive jobs.

One user said the app for GrabFood riders was also unresponsive, "rendering us all 'jobless' in full gear".

Grab said it was experiencing "some technical difficulties with our app" in its replies to these users.

"Our engineers are working at full steam to recover the app. Please be patient with us and try again later," it added.

About an hour later at 9am, the company said in a Facebook post that "some of our services are not accessible at the moment" and that it was looking into this.

The same statement was also posted on GrabFood's official Facebook page.

When CNA checked the app on Tuesday at around 9am, the map allowing users to select pick-up locations and destinations before booking a ride showed an error message and did not load.

On Twitter, Grab users in Indonesia also reported problems with the app, uploading screenshots of the food delivery and transport services not loading.

Grab Malaysia's and Grab Indonesia's official Twitter accounts apologised to users and said they were dealing with the issue.

Grab Philippines also said in replies to users' tweets that it was "aware of the technical issue" and working to get the app back up.

Grab offers a range of services through its app, from food delivery to digital payments.

Last week, the company reported a 9 per cent decline in Q3 revenue as its mobility business was hit by COVID-19 curbs in some Southeast Asian countries.

In Singapore, Grab raised its base fare for ride-hailing services by S$1 from June, saying that it wanted to improve earnings for its drivers.

The platform operates in eight Southeast Asian countries, also including Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam.