Southeast Asia’s O2O company Fave, evolved out of Malaysia’s KFit Group, has now acquired Groupon’s Singapore business. This deal follows the prior takeover of Groupon’s Indonesia and Malaysia businesses last year. The said move has been undertaken to drive the growth of local businesses through consumer saving. However, both parties engaged in the deal have declined to disclose the details of the transactions.
While Groupon Malaysia has been fully integrated into the newly launched O2O platform Fave, post-acquisition; Groupon Indonesia is still to follow the lead. Fave entered into the O2O segment with the aim to become a marketplace where firms can offer competitive prices, flexible offer structures, and loyalty solutions, with various tools to help them excel in mobile commerce. Available in Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, and Singapore, it lists over 3,200 businesses across these places.
The proceedings for the deal are expected to conclude by the end of this week, where similar to kin divisions, Groupon Singapore will integrate into Fave by mid-2017. With the acquisition of multiple group buying platforms, KFit now intends to push its O2O business within various lifestyle categories across Southeast Asia.
Speaking about the acquisition of Groupon Singapore, Ng Aik-Phong, Managing Director, Fave Singapore said,
With one of the highest smartphone penetration in the world at 85 per cent and a highly competitive market for offline businesses, Fave’s ability to connect digitally savvy consumers to offline businesses will play a key role in the company’s success in the region.
After combining with Groupon Singapore, Fave with its technology will further enhance convenience for consumers. The company has seen tremendous growth in the adoption of O2O platforms by local businesses across Southeast Asia over the past year. And the benefits offered by the Fave platform today is just the beginning, with more features and categories coming soon. However, the goal for the platform remains the same — to gain new customers for partners while retaining the existing ones.
