Southeast Asia’s food delivery landscape has entered a paradoxical era. While the total gross merchandise value (GMV) for the region surged by 18 per cent year-on-year to reach a staggering US$22.7 billion in 2025, the individual value of each order is actually shrinking. This shift marks a fundamental change in strategy for the region’s dominant players: Grab, ShopeeFood, and Gojek.
According to the 6th annual “Food Delivery Platforms in Southeast Asia” report by Momentum Works, platforms are now converging on affordability as their primary growth engine. This move is systematically driving average order values (AOVs) lower across every major market.
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In the early growth phases of the 2020s, platforms relied heavily on massive subsidies to acquire users across all price points. As the industry pivoted toward profitability in the early 2020s, those subsidies were slashed, and user bases narrowed to core, higher-spending segments.
However, the report indicates that growth pressure has returned in 2025, forcing platforms to look beyond their affluent core. The result is a renewed focus on “cost-first” consumers, who were previously priced out of the convenience economy.
The strategy of bundles and “saver” deliveries
The evidence of this convergence is visible in the product roadmaps of every major platform. Grab has aggressively rolled out its “GrabFood for One” and “Shared Saver” initiatives to reduce the entry price for single-person households. In Indonesia, Gojek (through GoFood) and Grab have both lowered the prices.
This isn’t just about vouchers; it’s about structural product changes. By introducing “saver” delivery options, where users accept longer wait times in exchange for lower fees, platforms are able to batch orders more efficiently, effectively lowering the cost-to-serve while capturing price-sensitive demand.
Thailand, the region’s second-largest market with a US$5.1 billion GMV, has seen the highest growth at 22 per cent, mainly driven by these affordability initiatives and the government’s “half-half” co-payment stimulus scheme.
A move toward mass adoption
The logic behind driving AOVs lower is to transform food delivery from an occasional luxury into an everyday habit for the mass market. Momentum Works estimates that between 8.5 million and 9.5 million food delivery orders are now fulfilled daily across Southeast Asia. To keep this number growing, platforms must unlock segments of the population that previously viewed US$5 to US$10 meals as too expensive.
However, this “race to the bottom” creates a challenging environment for merchants. While the report notes that order frequency is increasing as subscriptions and vouchers normalise repeat ordering, the downward pressure on pricing means restaurants must operate with extreme efficiency. Medium-sized merchants, in particular, are finding themselves squeezed as platforms use their vast datasets to influence pricing and promotional positioning.
The global benchmark
The shadow of China’s delivery market looms large over these developments. Meituan and Alibaba have spent over US$11 billion on subsidies during their domestic delivery wars, creating a market where more than 30 per cent of orders are now beverages. Southeast Asian platforms are selectively adopting China-inspired tactics, such as affordable bundled meals and prepaid vouchers, to defend their market share against potential entry by new, hyper-efficient competitors like Meituan’s Keeta.
Also Read: Understanding the economics of food delivery platforms
As 2026 approaches, the success of a platform will no longer be measured by how much it can charge per order, but by how many millions of low-margin orders it can orchestrate through its ecosystem without breaking the unit economics of its delivery fleet.
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