Grab shares crash nearly 40% after posting a $1 billion loss

Grab, the Southeast Asian startup known for its "super apps," had a terrible Thursday.

The ride-hailing giant's stock in New York fell as much as 37% after reporting disappointing earnings.

It posted revenue of $122 million for the fourth quarter, down 44% from the previous year, as the firm said it had "pre-invested to grow" its number of drivers.

The company also lost $1.1 billion during this period, largely due to the cost of going public in the United States during its blockbuster initial public offering last year.

Grab stock was down 0.9% at $3.28 in after-hours trading on Thursday.

The slide comes three months after the firm debuted on the Nasdaq, the largest-ever on Wall Street by a Southeast Asian company.

Grab (GRAB) went public in December by merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. The company raised $4.5 billion in the deal, and was valued at approximately $40 billion.

In contrast, the company is now worth about $12.3 billion based on current market capitalization.

Grab was founded in 2012, and grew rapidly to become Southeast Asia's most valuable private company prior to its IPO.

It acquired Uber's Southeast Asia business in 2018 and has since expanded into a variety of other services, including food delivery, digital payments and even financial services.

In recent years, the firm has cast itself as a "super app," allowing users to do everything from booking rides to taking out insurance and loans. Grab says in its latest earnings report that by 2021, around 24 million people use the app to transact every month in 480 cities across eight countries.

There were some bright spots on Thursday: The company's full-year revenue for 2021 rose 44% year-over-year to $675 million, thanks to a boom in delivery and financial services.

And despite the major losses, Grab "retained category leadership across all of our core verticals," Chief Financial Officer Peter Oye said in a statement.

"We remain focused on our path to profitability and will continue to improve our unit economics," he added.

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