Shares in Indonesia’s GoTo fall as 2022 losses widen to $2.6 billion
- Shares in Indonesia’s GoTo fell 2.78% in early trade on Tuesday, after the firm reported a wider net loss in 2022.
- While the adjusted EBITDA loss in the fourth quarter of 2022 improved, the company still lags behind peers such as Grab and Sea Limited, DBS analyst Sachin Mittal said.
- GoTo management previously promised cost cuts, including two rounds of layoffs, to drive the business toward profitability.
GoTo Group posted a wider 2022 full-year net loss of 40.4 trillion rupiah ($2.63 billion) in its latest earnings report.
Dimas Ardian | Bloomberg | Getty Images
GoTo Group shares fell as much as 4.62% on Tuesday after the Indonesian tech giant’s 2022 annual net loss widened.
Full-year net losses came in at 40.4 trillion Indonesian rupiah ($2.63 billion) last year, according to the company’s latest earnings report.
Here are the key takeaways:
- Net income: 11.3 trillion rupiah, up from 5.2 trillion rupiah in 2021
- Adjusted loss before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization: 16 trillion rupiah, against 16.5 trillion rupiah in 2021
- Net loss: 40.4 trillion rupiah, against 25.9 trillion rupiah in 2021
And in the fourth quarter of 2022:
- Net income: 3.4 trillion rupiah, against 4.5 trillion rupiah in the third quarter
- Adjusted EBITDA loss: 3.1 trillion rupiah, against 3.7 trillion rupiah in the previous quarter
GoTo, the combined entity between ride-hailing giant Gojek and e-commerce marketplace Tokopedia, was listed on the stock exchange in Indonesia last April.
“GoTo has managed to reduce its adjusted EBITDA loss [in the fourth quarter of 2022] to 3.1 trillion rupiah, marking a 16% quarter-on-quarter increase,” said Sachin Mittal, head of telecom and internet sector research at DBS Bank. Adjusted EBITDA is a measure of profitability after removing various one-off and non-recurring items from EBITDA.
The improvement comes as GoTo’s mobility services segment saw “transport fully restored to pre-pandemic levels and showed healthy growth despite increases in fuel prices and higher tariffs,” the company said in a press release.
During the earnings call on Monday, GoTo Group CEO Andre Soelistyo said the company focused more on retaining the most profitable customers since those customers require less incentivization.
“This strategy enabled us to reduce incentives and product marketing in the fourth quarter of 2022 by 34%, or 2.8 trillion rupiah, year-on-year. We expect such savings to increase over future quarters,” he said.
“While the reduction in losses is commendable, it falls short of the 30% improvement achieved by Grab Holdings,” Mittal said at DBS Bank, referring to GoTo’s Southeast Asian ride-hailing and food delivery rival. “In addition, Sea Limited has managed to steer towards profitability in the fourth quarter of 2022,” he said, referring to e-commerce giant Sea that competes with GoTo’s Tokopedia.
Grab’s fourth-quarter adjusted EBITDA loss was $111 million, down about 31% from the previous quarter. Meanwhile, Sea Limited posted positive net income for the first time in the fourth quarter of 2022.
GoTo has struggled to be profitable.
During an earnings call in November, management promised further cost cuts and said it expects a “significant portion” of those cuts to be realized in the first quarter of 2023.
GoTo expects to become operationally profitable during the fourth quarter of 2023. However, the technology firm expects an adjusted EBITDA loss of between 4.6 trillion and 5.3 trillion rupiah for the full year 2023.
“Looking ahead, the first two months of 2023 show even faster progress, meaning we are on track to reach positive adjusted EBITDA by the fourth quarter of 2023,” Soelistyo said in the firm’s latest press release.
This month, GoTo implemented another round of layoffs affecting 600 roles, the company announced. In November, it had said that 1,300 workers had been made redundant.
