CT Corp and Bukalapak to Form a Joint Venture Company in the Field of "Online Grocery"

The owner of the conglomerate Chairul Tanjung, through PT Trans Retail Indonesia, announced that he would form a company online groceries joint venture (joint venture) with PT Bukalapak.com Tbk (IDX: OPEN).

"E-commercee will be devoted to fresh products and foodstuffs (Grocery). The composition of Trans Retail's ownership [will] be 55% and Bukalapak 45%," said Chairul Tanjung when met after a press conference at the Indonesia Stock Exchange.

The man who is familiarly called CT is reluctant to elaborate further on the formation of the joint venture. However, this corporate action is a big signal from CT Corp to seriously work on selling fresh products and food-based ingredients offline-to-online (O2O).

For information, Trans Retail Indonesia is a subsidiary of CT Corp which oversees modern retail network companies Transmart, Carrefour, and Groserindo. Currently, Trans Retail Indonesia has operated nearly 100 multi-format concept outlets in 28 cities in Indonesia, offering 40.000 products to its 70 million customers.

Market competition e-grocery

Prior to this, a number of large technology companies have started to take similar corporate actions seriously. The difference is, they take an inorganic strategy by acquiring modern retail chain companies.

Blibli and GoTo both announced their corporate actions to take over retail companies in 2021. Blibli chose to annex 51% shares owned by PT Supra Boga Lestari Tbk (IDX: RANC) which manages Ranch Market.

While, Goto acquired 6,74% stake in PT Matahari Putra Prima Tbk (IDX: MPPA) through PT Multipolar Tbk (IDX: MPLPL). Meanwhile, Matahari Putra Prima is a subsidiary of Lippo Group which has a giant modern retail network in Indonesia. Some of its outlets are Hypermart, Foodmart Supermarket, and Primo Supermarket.

Source: Reprocessed by DailySocial

Previous, Minister of Trade Muhammad Lutfi projecting the sales value of fresh food products through marketplace to reach more than Rp180 trillion in the next five years. Meanwhile, the sales value in 2021 is estimated at IDR 21 trillion.

Lutfi assessed that the contribution of selling fresh food products through the marketplace was still small, but the growth was significant. Moreover, he saw the trend of many synergies between modern retailers and technology companies.

The retail network has started to drive sales with an online-to-offline (O2O) concept by partnering with technology companies that have strengths in innovation, product ecosystem, and logistics.