With Southeast Asia opening up borders, Capital A (formerly known as AirAsia) is looking forward to rebound as it expects travel to “return to normal” by July.
To take things further, AirAsia announced that its digital business, airasia Super App has signed a 5 year collaboration with Google Cloud.
The partnership aims to create a co-innovation ecosystem that all businesses and developers can utilise to serve the daily needs of people in the region.
“With Google’s assistance, our ecosystem will be about community building and enriching that community and this is not just limited to the customers but partners such as restaurants, airlines, hotels, and drivers,” said Tony Fernandes, chief executive officer of Capital A.
Key Highlights
- The partnership will also encompass four pillars; nurturing technology talent; co-creating software tools for open innovation; delivering data-driven intelligence on behalf of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) on the platform; and ensuring accessibility for users in both cities and rural areas.
- The partnership will also see the establishment of a Cloud Center of Excellence (CCoE) consisting of experts from both AirAsia and Google Cloud.
- Currently, airasia Super App offers services such as flight and hotel bookings, ecommerce, food and parcel delivery, ride-hailing, financial and health services, and even on-demand education.
- The super-app has operations in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines, with a total of 51 million users since its inception in 2020.
- Chief executive officer of Google Cloud, Thomas Kurian highlighted that super-apps are giving small businesses a lifeline, thus stimulating economies.
- On a side note, Tony Fernandes also predicted that AirAsia will be able to get its currently idle 200 planes back into operation by end of 2022.
