M A N A G E M E N T D I S C U S S I O N A N D A N A L Y S I S A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 2 1 0 7 1 Our success in fund-raising serves as an incredibly strong testament of investors’ confidence in the Group’s potential to recover as our transformation strategy gains momentum. At the same time, it is a reflection of the calibre of our management, and the support of our partners. One silver lining of the pandemic has been getting to know who our true partners are. The acid test of any relationship is when things go south. That’s when we discovered we have some amazing partners. It’s been incredibly encouraging. BECOMING A UNICORN Another key achievement has been the accelerated development of our airasia Super App during the downtime in flying. Six months ago, nobody was talking about super apps. Today, because of the fantastic work of the team, everyone in Malaysia knows the airasia Super App, and many have used it. We were already very good at moving people by air, so we thought why not move boxes, or deliver food, or people on the ground? Finally, why not help people with their financial transactions? These are just some of the things that we are doing through airasia Super App and our digital businesses, all of which are growing from strength to strength by the day. Providing access to more than 700 airlines (including the likes of Emirates and KLM) and more than 3,000 destinations, airasia Super App is officially one of the top three online travel agencies (OTAs) in Asean based on website traffic. We’re also very pleased with all the new products that have been introduced on the Super App. Among these, airasia food and airasia ride are noteworthy because they have been made possible through strategic acquisitions, that of Malaysia’s homegrown DeliverEat, Dacsee as well as Gojek’s operations in Thailand. Through DeliverEat and Dacsee, we have not only inherited the food delivery and e-hailing businesses but also on-boarded their founders – three very entrepreneurial Malaysians who have added significantly to our pioneering spirit. It’s been very gratifying to see them integrate smoothly into the Group which, to us, indicates that we have been successful in maintaining our entrepreneurial ethos. Thanks to the Gojek acquisition, we have been recognised as a tech unicorn, namely a startup valued at more than USD1 billion. This is truly something to be proud of; according to Credit Suisse, we are one of only three unicorns in Malaysia. Because of the incredible rate at which we are growing the Super App and other digital businesses, it may seem as if we are going into anything and everything. The fact is, learnings from the airlines have helped us to frame and discipline our expansion by only entering into businesses where we are confident of being profitable and sustainable. All our new businesses leverage off one another. Importantly, many of them are already profitable and, with the revival of the airlines in 2022 and beyond, they will all soar to new heights. With the exception of the year 2019 when we suffered losses due to one-off costs and now, because of the pandemic, AirAsia has always made profits. NON-AIRLINE BUSINESSES All of our independent digital businesses have made significant progress during the year. We see huge potential in Asia Digital Engineering (ADE), our aircraft maintenance, overhaul and repair (MRO) business which has obtained approvals to conduct base maintenance work from the relevant authorities in Malaysia, Cambodia, India, Indonesia and the Philippines. It has also completed some important aircraft reconfigurations for AirAsia, creating significant cost savings. ADE is well on track to becoming a major MRO player in the region supporting third-party airlines as well as AirAsia. Our fast-growing logistics venture arm Teleport is leveraging the e-commerce and logistics boom, enabling small businesses and entrepreneurs to send their products around the world faster and cheaper than other logist ics operators. Serving the underserved underpins all that we do and our fintech portfolio company BigPay is doing precisely this with financial services across the region. Through BigPay, we are excited to offer small entrepreneurs, SMEs and the mass public access to simple low-rate loans and other everyday financial services which they may not be able to get from other providers. Our ventures arm helps to incubate new ventures such as airasia grocer, IKHLAS and airasia academy. We have been educating our Allstars all these years, but to educate others to be tech- enabled in the new digital era is a big ambition. With the academy, we have partnered Google and offer primarily digi tal training to Al lstars, SMEs, government agencies and any other interested parties. During the year, the academy launched on-demand learning (ODL) which is proving to be extremely popular. And we believe there is still a lot of potential to bridge the skills gap by developing tech talent across the region.
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