PT Astra International Invests in Sayurbox with IDR 72 Billion

PT Astra International invests in a startup that provides basic necessities, Sayurbox, with US$ 5 million or around IDR 72 billion. The parent group of Astra is also injecting capital for a start-up company in the health sector, Halodoc, US$ 35 million or IDR 508 billion.

This corporate action has been carried out since last month. “The group is the main investor in the new funding rounds of these two Indonesian startups,” he was quoted as saying in the first-quarter financial report, Wednesday (21/4).

Sayurbox is farm-to-table grocery e-commerce. During the first quarter, it noted that service demand increased 30% on an annual basis (year on year / yoy). The company hooked up 1,000 farmers in several areas, including Surabaya and Bali per last year.

The company markets the yields from farmers, and categorized them based on their quality, such as imperfect products, grades a, b, and c.

Sayurbox estimates that the demand for fresh products will increase during Ramadan. For that, “we use the cloud and implement a planting program to find out what the market needs,” said Communications Manager Sayurbox Bintang Angkasa, late last month (30/3).

Astra Group Profits Decreased 22 Percent in the First Quarter of 2021

Previously, PT Astra International Tbk announced financial reports for the first quarter of 2021. During that period, the Astra group holding earned a net profit of IDR 3.728 trillion, down 22 percent on an annual basis (year on year) compared to the same period in the previous year which amounted to IDR 4.810 trillion.

Likewise, the company’s net income also decreased by 4 percent year on year, from IDR 54.002 trillion in the first quarter of 2020 to IDR 51.7 trillion in the first quarter of 2021.

“Both Astra group revenue and net profit in the first quarter of 2021 are lower than the same period last year, considering that last year the pandemic had just started to affect Indonesia’s economy and business performance substantially in March 2020,” said Astra International President Director Djony Bunarto Tjondro in a report he wrote, Wednesday (21/4/2021).

“Although the business performance of the Astra group has slowly improved in recent months, the prospect of this year’s performance is still overshadowed by uncertainty due to the impact of the ongoing pandemic,” added Djony.

In the first quarter of 2021, national car sales fell 21 percent to 187 thousand units. Meanwhile, Astra’s car sales subsided 24 percent to 99 thousand units with a market share dropping from 55 percent to 53 percent.

Meanwhile, national motorcycle sales decreased 18 percent to 1,294,000 units in the first quarter of this year. On the other hand, Astra’s sales of Honda motorcycles were reduced by 17 percent to 1,008,000 units, but the market share increased slightly.

Previously, SayurBox Gave Access to Affordable Financing to Farmers’ MSMEs

Collaborates with AwanTunai, SayurBox provides easy access to low-cost formal invoice financing, so far it has facilitated more than 5,000 MSME farmers in Indonesia.

In an effort to develop the program, both company formed a partnership with SCBF (Swiss Capacity Building Facility) to facilitate technical funding assistance. AwanTunai develops data collection and digital assessment infrastructure through funds facilitated by SCBF.

It aims to create a credit risk management process that banks accept to make it more suitable for small business. Also, develop the basic infrastructure system (which is HP application development) and carry out sales and marketing activities.

The company hoped that this can open up more and more SMEs farmers to access to finance.  It’s expected to digitize and optimize the supply chain of the agricultural industry to expand the reach of affordable financing to more than 19 million SME farmers, including those without bank accounts.