The merger between Grab and Uber in Southeast Asia is said to only fuel its drive and passion to serve the community better.

This is a major milestone for Grab, a homegrown start-up established less than six years ago, towards achieving its goal of becoming the #1 ride-hailing, fintech and food delivery platform in Southeast Asia.

Country head of Grab Malaysia, Sean Goh said: "We have always believed that we need to keep outdoing ourselves at every stage in order to earn the right to serve the community. If anything, this union strongly affirms that our commitment to put the needs of our customers and driver partners first is the right one.

"We expect this combination to drive a better experience for our community of drivers and passengers, and with a greater concentration of jobs and available drivers, we expect to see shorter wait-times and faster pick-ups. This would mean better productivity for our drivers, and better reliability for our passengers," he said in a statement, today.

Goh said new Uber users would be able to benefit from the unique features such as 'GrabRewards' for passengers and 'Better365' and 'GrabAllStars' for the driver-partners.

"GrabRewards makes our users' experience and journey with us more rewarding. Meanwhile, our Better365 and GrabAllStars programmes enable our driver partners to enjoy better benefits, support and opportunities to engage with fellow drivers through our 'Teh Tarik Sessions' and 'Driver Town Halls'.

"Looking forward, we will be pushing towards our next stage of growth - to serve our fellow Malaysians in all their most important daily needs, whether to ride, pay, nourish or earn more for their families.

"Today, we are already serving more than 90 million users in Southeast Asia and empowering more than five million micro-entrepreneurs - driver-partners, merchants and agents - across the region to earn more.

"Now, we will also rapidly expand our GrabFood platform to provide more jobs for delivery couriers and restaurants and to serve their community in more ways," he said.

Grab is Southeast Asia's leading on-demand transportation and mobile payments platform, solving critical transportation challenges to make transport freedom a reality for 620 million people in Southeast Asia.

Currently, Grab offers services in Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, and Cambodia. For more information, visit http://www.grab.com.

-- BERNAMA