User:WPSamson/sandbox

History
In September 25, 2015, during the Digital News Asia conference, AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes announced that AirAsia is planning to diversify it's company from aviation industry-focused company into an e-commerce company, although further details haven't been disclosed during the announcement.

During the BBC interview on August 31, 2020, AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes said that during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the restriction on local and international travel has caused AirAsia to report loss in revenue and has laid off some of the employees from the company. At the same time, the restriction period also gives AirAsia an opportunity to focus on digital business including improving existing AirAsia application, BigPay, an e-wallet application, and develop a super-app that includes certain features including online food ordering, e-commerce, payments, entertainment and travel that will compete with other super-app including Grab, Gojek and WeChat. He claimed that the development of super-app takes inspiration from Grab, GoJek and Meituan.

AirAsia relaunched it's website and mobile app to become super-app in October 9, 2020, and branded as airasia.com. Several non-aviation features were initially added into the relaunched app including online food ordering, e-commerce store, online grocer, insurance, personal health information and leisure activities, with other features added at later date including e-hailing (as AirAsia ride) in August 24, 2021, and parcel delivery service (as AirAsia Xpress) on November 26, 2021.

Acquision
After the relaunch of the super-app, AirAsia subsequently acquired several companies around Southeast Asia in order to expand the operations and integrate acquired features into their app.

International operation
Airasia.com launched in Singapore on March 3, 2021 with initial features included including online food ordering AirAsia Food with 80 restaurants on board initially, with later features including online grocer, AirAsia Fresh, on July 6, 2021. Airasia.com also launched in Thailand on August 18, 2021, a month after AirAsia acquired Gojek operation in Thailand. Tony Fernandes announced that these services that are initially available in Malaysia will soon expanding to other countries including Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Philippines.