Get ready for Robinhood to be your ride home

Last year, SCB (Siam Commercial Bank) Group launched Robinhood food delivery service, and pointed to plans for the nascent app to be a future “super application”. Following a starting phase, the service would offer three non-food services—Robinhood Travel, Robinhood Mart, and Robinhood Express.

A year into operation, the platform has gained 2.3 million registered users being served by 164,000 merchants and around 20,000 riders, according to Thana Thienachariya, chairman of Purple Ventures Co, an SCB group tech startup. The platform has so far offered its service without charging any fees or percentage of sales to merchants. 

Photo: Courtesy of Robinhood

When compared to other food delivery platforms, users are largely existing SCB customers and SCB credit cardholders. Because of this, Robinhood has high potential in offering cross-selling services to existing customers, expanding its customer base, and contributing greater income from advertisements, commissions, and digital loan services, said Thana.

Robinhood has recently announced plans to introduce car-hailing services as part of their journey to becoming a “super application”. According to Srihanath Lamsam, managing director of Purple Ventures Co, the tentative launch of Robinhood Ride service should happen by the end of this year. He said the company was developing a platform to prepare for the operation and will recruit taxis and private cars registered for public transport in October.