A Southeast Asian loyalty platform has established its presence in the Philippines following the acquisition of a local online grocery delivery service company.
In a news statement on Thursday, Nasdaq-listed Society Pass Inc. (SoPa) announced the completion of its purchase of Pushkart.ph, making it a wholly owned subsidiary of the loyalty platform company.
The transaction provides Pushkart.ph access to SoPa’s capital which can help it boost its on-demand grocery shopping services to both consumers and retailers initially in Metro Manila and then expanding across the country. This, as it supports grocery stores and restaurants to maximize online markets amid changing consumer behavior in pandemic.
Pushkart.ph currently has 125,000 registered users, over 35,000 social media followers and at least 20,000 mobile app downloads. With the collaboration, the parties seek to more than double the customer base to 300,000 and boost the app downloads to over 150,000 this year.
“As the Phillipine consumer faces tremendous challenges with traditional brick and mortar shopping due to a plethora of hurdles including excessive wait times in traffic/public transport, SoPa aims to provide viable solutions by providing impetus to the growing e-commerce industry in the country,” said Dennis Nguyen, SoPa founder, chairman and chief executive officer.
Nguyen added that the Philippines is also “a cornerstone of SoPa’s VIP [Vietnam, Indonesia, and Philippines] acquisition strategy, I expect to acquire a number of market leading companies in Philippines over the next few months.”
Pushkart.ph CEO Michael Lim said their partnership with SoPa will provide returns due to cost optimization and additional revenue generation.
Lim said the Southeast Asian firm will provide an end-to-end solution to its customers that can help in expanding its market presence.
“We are excited to join the larger SoPa ecosystem which will enable us to harness its integrated marketing and technology proposition while also strengthening our collective senior management resources,” he added.
SoPa said the acquisition is in line with its “core vertical focus and facilitates proliferation of its growth in Philippines while increasing consumer opportunities and delivering enhanced value.”
In addition, the transaction is expected to expand the digital adoption in Philippine online grocery shopping space.