Indonesia’s GoTo posts $201.9 million quarterly loss

Indonesia’s biggest tech firm PT GoTo Gojek Tokopedia Tbk posted a narrower adjusted EBITDA loss for the fourth quarter of 2022 of 3.1 trillion rupiah ($201.89 million), the firm said on Monday.

GoTo posted 6.5 trillion rupiah in adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation and rent) loss in the same period of 2021.

Its group CEO Andre Soelistyo said the results showed the company was making progress towards profitability through its cost-cutting measures, such as reducing incentives and marketing spending.

“Although we expect growth to moderate in the short term, we will continue to focus on building the foundational product infrastructure that will drive sustainable, profitable growth over the long term,” he said in the statement.

GoTo said its growth of gross transaction value in the next quarters will be slowing down as the company reduced its spending on promotion and a high-based effect last year, which saw higher transactions due to COVID-19 public movement restrictions.

“There will be a normalisation for our food deliveries and e-commerce transactions…and there’s still macrouncertainty that will affect customer spending,” GoTo Group CFO Jacky Lo said in an investors call on Monday.

GoTo said the group is on track to achieve positive adjusted EBITDA within the fourth quarter this year, while its 2023 adjusted EBITDA loss is expected to be in range of 5.3 trillion rupiah to 4.6 trillion rupiah.

The results were indicative position and results based on unaudited reports. Audited numbers would be available by the end of March, it said.

Gross revenue in the last quarter of 2022 was up 19 per cent year-on-year to 6.3 trillion rupiah, while net loss in the quarter was 19.5 trillion, up almost double from 10.2 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2021.

For the whole year of 2022, it booked a net loss of 40.4 trillion rupiah or up 55.9 per cent from 2021’s net loss of 25.9 trillion rupiah.

The group said the higher net loss was due to several reasons, including an 11 trillion rupiah goodwill impairment related to the business combination of Gojek and Tokopedia, which are both their units.

Prior to the 2022 result announcement, shares of GoTo closed 6.9 per cent down or hit their bottom trading limit on Monday to 108 rupiah a piece.