Merger Of Gojek And Tokopedia To Become A Startup Game Changer In Indonesia

Merger of Gojek and Tokopedia (doc. GoTo)

JAKARTA - Gojek, and Tokopedia officially merged into one joint entity called the GoTo Group. The combination of two large entities in one joint business ecosystem will change the business map and business competition.

Given that Gojek is big as a ride-hailing company and Tokopedia is an online marketplace. A startup and multimedia observer, Heru Sutadi, said the GoTo merger was a game-changer for businesses in the Southeast Asia region.

"Of course this is a game-changer in the digital industry in Indonesia, including Southeast Asia because the business footprint is also in the Southeast Asian region", Heru said when contacted by VOI, Monday, May 17.

According to Heru, this consolidation is indeed a corporate need in responding to increasingly tough and challenging business challenges. Especially to keep out new players in the digital world, especially those engaged in online transportation and marketplaces.

"It is necessary to watch out for the presence of new conglomerates in the digital sector. That will make it difficult for new players to enter the digital business, especially in online transportation, online food ordering, e-commerce, and digital payment systems. This includes market control", Heru explained.

For this reason, Heru hopes that the government will take part in overcoming this conglomeration action which will later affect excessive service prices. Especially in the market share owned by the two Indonesian Decacorns.

"Market domination will affect service prices and in the end, there will be excessive service prices, different when new services were introduced a few years ago," he added.

However, Heru also expressed his support for the decision of the Gojek and Tokopedia merger, "And because of the game-changer, this can be an inspiration for other players to adopt the same strategy," said Heru.

As previously reported, Gojek and Tokopedia today officially announced the formation of the GoTo Group, which is the largest technology group in Indonesia that will provide various solutions for living every day (“go-to” ecosystem for daily life).

Andre Soelistyo from Gojek was chosen to lead GoTo as Group CEO, with Patrick Cao from Tokopedia as President of GoTo. Then, Kevin Aluwi will remain as CEO of Gojek and William Tanuwijaya will remain as CEO of Tokopedia.