Jakarta (VNA) – Indonesia had the largest food delivery servicemarket in Southeast Asia in 2020 in terms of gross merchandise value (GMV),according to a report by venture capital firm Momentum Works.

The GMV of the country’s food delivery services was 3.7 billion USD, accountingfor 31 percent of the total food delivery value of Thailand, Singapore,Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia itself.

Last year, the total GMV for the region was 11.9 billion USD, up 183 percentfrom the previous year and exceeding the 91 percent growth rate from 2018-2019.

At a virtual press conference on January 28, Momentum Works chief operatingofficer Yorlin Ng said one of the reason for this big growth was COVID-19.

Multiservice app company Grab contributed nearly half of the region’s GMW with5.9 billion USD, followed by its competitors Foodpanda, Gojek, Deliveroo,LineMan and Now. Grab has surpassed Gojek’s food service market share in bothIndonesia and Southeast Asia in general.

The report comes as many Indonesians face tighter mobility restrictions thatlimit the occupancy and operational hours of restaurants in an effort tocontain the spread of COVID-19.

The restrictions caused the number of visitors to retail and recreationlocales, which include restaurants, to fall by 32 percent nationally from thetypical level seen in the January to February period, according to GoogleCOVID-19 Community Mobility Reports data from January 24.

As more consumers ordered food from home, 750,000 small businesses joinedGojek’s GoFood delivery service last year, an increase of 50 percent from theyear before, according to a company press release published on January 22.

GoFood, which entered the market in 2015, reported twentyfold growth over thelast four years. The platform now offers more than 20 million food and beverageitems.

The food delivery service market grew rapidly because consumers were afraid ofcontracting COVID-19 at restaurants, said Bhima Yudhistira, an economist at theInstitute for Development of Economics and Finance.

Bhima added that more people had started food and beverage businesses withoutdine-in services, selling their products solely on food delivery platforms, andthe trend will keep rising this year./.