A New CEO's First Call Names the Tradeoff Nobody Else Would
The 1Q23 post closed by asking GoTo to stop hiding behind "we don't provide quantitative guidance" when the question was really about a shrinking user base, not top-line guidance. Three months later, GoTo got a new person answering the question entirely: Patrick Walujo - an early investor in Gojek, a long-time associate of GoTo's founding management, and the founder of Northstar Group - took over as President Director and CEO, with Andre Soelistyo moving to the Board of Commissioners. This was Walujo's first earnings call, and unlike his predecessor, he opened by naming the tradeoff directly: "by cutting back on incentives, we have skewed our total addressable market away from the masses, towards consumers who value convenience over affordability." That's the plainest statement of the "quality over quantity" thesis this series has tracked since 4Q22 - not from an analyst's inference, but from the company's own new CEO, on his first call.
The numbers underneath that admission got worse, not better. LTM (Last Twelve Months) Annual Transacting Users fell from 67 million (2Q22) to 53 million (2Q23) - a 21% year-on-year decline, sharper than 1Q23's 10% decline (65M to 58M) and now a third consecutive quarter of contraction. Group Contribution Margin» did hold positive for a second straight quarter - +0.7% of GTV» (Rp1,045 billion), up from +0.4% in 1Q23 - so the profitability turn flagged last quarter wasn't a one-off. But the "fewer, better users" arithmetic is now compounding for a third quarter running: GTV per LTM ATU rose 42% year-on-year (Rp8 million to Rp12 million) and orders per user rose 33% (38 to 50 per year), while quarterly orders themselves fell 8% year-on-year to 638 million - the user base isn't just shrinking, the remaining users are transacting less often too, even as they each spend more.
Walujo framed his mandate around three things: continued cost discipline (a 24% workforce reduction over the past three quarters, plus exiting non-core entertainment businesses), a strategy review to widen the addressable market back toward budget consumers without returning to "unsustainable" incentive spending, and accelerating Gojek-Tokopedia ecosystem integration, which he said hadn't moved fast enough. He also directly acknowledged intensifying competition from TikTok Shop and Lazada in E-Commerce - the first time this series has seen GoTo management name a specific competitor by name on a call, rather than speaking only in terms of "market share" abstractly.
The Prescription
GoTo's new CEO already did the one thing last quarter's Prescription asked for: he named the ATU decline as a direct consequence of a strategic choice, rather than deflecting it as an Omicron base effect. What GoTo should do now is turn that admission into a disclosed metric, not just a talking point - a simple cohort chart showing retained-user spend versus new/reactivated-user contribution would let the market judge whether the Hemat-led reacceleration strategy (GoFood Hemat, GoCar Hemat, GoTransit) is actually rebuilding the base or just slowing its decline. What GoTo should stop doing is running two "we are reviewing our strategy, more color next quarter" answers back to back - both the CEO and the E-Commerce president gave nearly identical non-answers to direct questions about balancing growth against profitability this call. A new CEO forty-five days into the job is a legitimate reason to defer specifics once; doing it again next quarter without a concrete framework would start to look like a pattern GoTo's old management was already criticized for.
Key Financial Metrics
Q2 2023 vs. Q2 2022 (three months ended June 30), derived by subtracting GoTo's own reported Q1 figures from its six-month interim consolidated financial statements
FX: IDR 15,064 = USD 1 (period-end rate, June 29, 2023), applied to both periods for comparability.
| Metric | Q2 2023 (IDR) | Q2 2023 (USD) | Q2 2022 (IDR) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Net Revenue | Rp3,552B | ~$235.8M | Rp1,903B | ✅ +87% |
| Loss from Operations | -Rp2,064B | ~-$137.0M | -Rp7,988B | ✅ Loss narrowed 74% |
| Adjusted EBITDA | -Rp1,208B (-0.84% of GTV) | ~-$80.2M | -Rp4,323B (-2.9% of GTV) | ✅ Loss narrowed 72% |
| Net Loss (for the period) | -Rp3,313B | ~-$220.0M | -Rp7,556B | ✅ Loss narrowed 56% |
| Net Loss (attributable to owners) | -Rp3,300B | ~-$219.1M | -Rp7,177B | ✅ Loss narrowed 54% |
| Free Cash Flow (OCF - capex) | -Rp1,241B | ~-$82.4M | -Rp7,212B | ✅ Cash burn narrowed 83% |
| Total Cash (at period-end) | Rp25,437B | ~$1,688.7M | n/a (Rp29,009B at Dec 2022) | ⚠️ -12.3% vs. Dec 2022 |
Total assets fell to Rp133,211 billion from Rp139,217 billion at December 2022 (-4.3%), total liabilities fell to Rp15,890 billion from Rp16,493 billion (-3.7%), and total equity fell to Rp117,321 billion from Rp122,723 billion (-4.4%), with accumulated losses reaching Rp125,640 billion - a Rp7,159 billion deepening that tracks almost exactly with the period's Rp7,162 billion net loss attributable to owners. Goodwill held flat at Rp82,833 billion, unchanged from both March and December 2022, since GoTo only tests goodwill for impairment annually at year-end.
The net-loss narrowing this quarter (56% for the period, 54% to owners) lines up closely with management's own cited figures on the call - a useful cross-check that the quarterly figures derived here by subtracting Q1 from the six-month filing are internally consistent with what management itself reported.
Key Operational Metrics
Pro forma basis, Q2 2023 vs. Q2 2022
| Metric | Q2 2023 | Q2 2022 | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|
| LTM Annual Transacting Users | 53M | 67M | ⚠️ -21% (third straight quarterly decline, sharper than 1Q23's -10% - see opening section) |
| GTV / LTM ATU | Rp12M | Rp8M | ✅ +42% |
| LTM Orders / LTM ATU | 50 | 38 | ✅ +33% |
| Quarterly Orders | 638M | 690M | ⚠️ -8% |
GoTo Financial's loan book (GoPayLater and related Consumer Lending products) reached approximately Rp1 trillion outstanding, up 21% quarter-on-quarter, while maintaining a positive Contribution Margin, per management's comments on the call - slower sequential growth than prior quarters, which CFO Jacky Lo attributed partly to continued "prudent" underwriting and partly to the negative GTV growth in On-Demand and E-Commerce reducing loan origination volume from those channels. Bank Jago remains the primary funder of the loan book under GoTo's strategic partnership, and two new cash-loan products (in Tokopedia and, imminently, GoPay) were launched during the quarter to broaden origination channels.
On-Demand Services
| Period | GTV | Gross Revenue | Take Rate | Contribution Margin (% of GTV) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q2 2022 | Rp14.5T | Rp2.8T | 19.2% | -3.8% |
| Q2 2023 | Rp13.2T (-9%) | Rp2.9T (+3%) | ✅ 21.7% | ✅ +4.7% |
On-Demand's Contribution Margin improved 853 basis points year-on-year to +4.7% of GTV (Rp623 billion), the largest single-segment improvement this quarter, on a further 35% cut to incentive spending (Rp1 trillion in quarterly savings). Management explicitly attributed the GTV decline to two separate causes worth distinguishing: the targeted effect of incentive rationalization pushing out lower-quality, price-sensitive users (a deliberate tradeoff), and Indonesia's unusually high number of public holidays in April and June, which genuinely depresses mobility and food-delivery demand independent of any strategy choice - a real seasonal effect layered on top of the strategic one. The Hemat ("value for money") product line - GoFood Hemat, GoCar Hemat, and the newly launched GoTransit multimodal feature - is management's stated answer to the ATU decline: cheaper not through subsidy but through order-batching, managed assortments, and more efficient vehicle routing, explicitly framed on the call as broadening the addressable base rather than just retaining existing spend.
E-Commerce
| Period | GTV | Gross Revenue | Take Rate | Contribution Margin (% of GTV) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q2 2022 | Rp67.3T | Rp2.0T | 3.0% | -1.3% |
| Q2 2023 | Rp58.7T (-13%, -10% ex. Mitra Tokopedia) | Rp2.2T (+8%) | ✅ 3.8% | ✅ +0.7% |
Tokopedia's Contribution Margin improved 201 basis points year-on-year to +0.7% of GTV (Rp413 billion) on a 48% cut to incentive spend (Rp1.2 trillion in quarterly savings), while gross revenue grew 8% on continued commission gains. Management named two specific new competitive pressures this quarter that weren't part of the framing in 1Q23: TikTok Shop and Lazada, both becoming "more aggressive" in recent months, plus the "potential entrance of Temu" raised by an analyst on the call. E-Commerce president Melissa Siska Juminto responded by citing Indonesia's E-Commerce penetration as still roughly half China's rate and order frequency at a third of China's level - a headroom argument, not a direct rebuttal of the competitive threat. GoTo Logistics' in-house delivery penetration inside Tokopedia is management's stated lever for defending share without incentives, by lowering the underlying cost of fulfillment rather than subsidizing the price paid by consumers.
Financial Technology Services
| Period | GTV | Gross Revenue | Take Rate | Contribution Margin (% of GTV) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q2 2022 | Rp87.3T | Rp0.4T | 0.4% | -0.5% |
| Q2 2023 | Rp90.5T (+4%) | Rp0.4T (+2%) | 0.4% | ⚠️ ~0.0% (approximately breakeven) |
FinTech's Contribution Margin improved 45 basis points year-on-year to "approximately breakeven" - management's own characterization on the call - a step back from 1Q23's reported +0.02% of GTV, which this site's prior post described as the segment's first positive quarter. The segment is essentially flat around the breakeven line across the last two quarters rather than cleanly holding positive, worth watching alongside On-Demand and E-Commerce's more decisive margin improvements this quarter. Incentive spend fell 59% year-on-year (Rp367 billion in savings), and management reiterated that FinTech remains "in investment mode" as Consumer Lending scales, meaning fixed costs are expected to rise in the short-to-medium term even as contribution economics hold near breakeven.
GoTo Logistics
| Period | Gross Revenue | Adjusted EBITDA |
|---|---|---|
| Q2 2022 | Rp0.5T | -Rp0.3T |
| Q2 2023 | Rp0.6T (+10%) | -Rp0.1T (loss narrowed 62%) |
Now in its second full quarter as a standalone segment (introduced 1Q23), Logistics cut incentive spending by 64% year-on-year (Rp122 billion in savings) while growing gross revenue 10%. Management described the segment's stated near-term priority plainly: lower E-Commerce's fulfillment costs by scaling in-house delivery capacity and routing overflow orders to the most cost-effective third parties, rather than pursuing standalone Logistics profitability yet - still explicitly "in investment mode," the same framing applied to FinTech.
Segment Comparison
| Segment | Contribution Margin (Q2 2023) | Contribution Margin (Q2 2022) | GTV YoY | Take Rate (Q2 2023) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| On-Demand Services | ✅ +4.7% of GTV | -3.8% | ⚠️ -9% | 21.7% |
| E-Commerce | ✅ +0.7% of GTV | -1.3% | ⚠️ -13% | 3.8% |
| Financial Technology Services | ⚠️ ~0.0% of GTV | -0.5% | ✅ +4% | 0.4% |
| GoTo Logistics | ⚠️ n/m (Adj. EBITDA -Rp0.1T) | n/m (Adj. EBITDA -Rp0.3T) | n/a | n/a |
| Group | ✅ +0.7% of GTV | -1.3% | ⚠️ -5% | 4.1% |
The pattern flagged in 1Q23 - all three original segments simultaneously Contribution-Margin positive - held for On-Demand and E-Commerce this quarter but not cleanly for FinTech, which slipped to roughly breakeven rather than staying decisively positive. On-Demand is now the clear margin leader by a wide margin (+4.7% of GTV, an 853bps YoY swing), while every segment's GTV outside FinTech continued to shrink - the group-level 5% GTV decline is now consistently a story of fewer transactions from lower-quality users being deliberately let go, not a market-wide slowdown.
GoTo's Share Price Since the IPO
GoTo closed at Rp110 on June 27, 2023 (the last trading day of the quarter) - down slightly from the Rp147 close reached in May 2023, and still down 67% from its Rp338 IPO price. The stock spent the quarter in a narrower band than the prior two quarters' swings, roughly tracking the market's wait-and-see response to the CEO transition rather than reacting sharply to the operating numbers themselves. GoTo has not split its stock since the IPO, so these are the actual nominal prices quoted on the exchange at the time, not split-adjusted figures.
Beyond the Usual
The Rp41.9 trillion copyright claim was decided in GoTo's favor
The Rp41.9 trillion copyright-infringement claim flagged as a larger-than-market-cap risk in 1Q23 reached a decision this quarter: in May 2023, the Commercial Court of Jakarta's Panel of Judges ruled in GoTo's favor on the case brought by Hasan Azhari (Arman Chasan), who had claimed copyright over the concept of online motorcycle-taxi hailing since 2008 and sought damages equal to 10% of GoTo's 2020-2021 income plus Rp10.8 billion in lost-income compensation. GoTo's own interim financial statements disclose the favorable ruling but do not disclose whether the plaintiff has filed or could still file an appeal - the filing states only that the judges ruled for the Company, not that the matter is now final and unappealable. This finding is worth flagging rather than dropping entirely: a favorable first-instance ruling on a claim of this size is genuinely good news, but the absence of any statement about appeal status means the exposure isn't yet confirmed closed the way a fully lapsed claim would be.
A new related-party credit facility funds GoTo's own lending subsidiary
In May 2023, GoTo's lending subsidiary MAB entered into a Rp100 billion revolving working-capital credit facility with Bank Jago - a related party through GoTo's existing strategic partnership, and the same bank that funds the majority of GoTo Financial's Consumer Lending book. The facility carries a 10.25% annual interest rate, is guaranteed by fiduciary collateral over MAB's own loan receivables (at 110% of the facility value) plus a corporate guarantee from GKAB, GoTo's majority shareholder in the lending entity, and had zero outstanding balance as of June 30, 2023. This is a related-party transaction connecting GoTo's own lending arm to its own strategic banking partner on both the funding and the credit-support side - not disclosed as a governance concern, and with no balance drawn yet, but the kind of intra-group financing structure worth tracking as the loan book scales, given the P2P lending arrangement flagged in 4Q22 and 1Q23 already routes a separate piece of the same lending business off-balance-sheet.
A second peer-to-peer lender joined the channeling arrangement, while utilization stayed thin
The P2P lending channeling arrangement between GoTo subsidiary MGR and PT Murni Aldana Manajemen - tracked since 4Q22 - gained a second lender this quarter, PT Aplikasi Pintar Sejahtera, adding a further Rp200 billion facility cap on top of the existing Rp350 billion cap. Combined outstanding financing received from both lenders fell to Rp63 billion as of June 30, 2023 (from Rp77.8 billion in 1Q23), while the amount actually channeled to borrowers rose to Rp17.5 billion (from Rp10.7 billion) - both loans remain off GoTo's own balance sheet since credit risk sits with the P2P lenders, not MGR.
GoTo let its minority stake in a listed retailer get diluted rather than defend it
As a subsequent event disclosed in this quarter's own financial statements, GoTo's indirect minority equity stake in PT Matahari Putra Prima Tbk (MPPA), a listed Indonesian retailer, was diluted in a July 2023 rights issue that GoTo chose not to participate in. This is a small, non-core legacy holding rather than a strategic asset, and the choice not to defend the stake is consistent with the new CEO's stated plan on the call to "scale down non-core businesses" - a concrete instance of that stated priority playing out in a specific investment decision, rather than only appearing as a talking point.
The Google Cloud commitment keeps shrinking, for a fifth consecutive post in this series
GoTo's disclosed Google Cloud/Maps purchase commitment fell again this quarter, to Rp647,481 million (~$43.0 million) as of June 30, 2023, from Rp984,599 million at 1Q23 and Rp1,217,103 million at year-end 2022 - continuing the decline first flagged in the 1Q22 post and tracked in every quarter since. GoTo has never explained these reductions in any earnings material across five consecutive quarters of this footnote shrinking.
What Management Emphasized on the Call
Patrick Walujo's opening remarks did most of the strategic work this quarter, which is why they're covered in the opening section above rather than repeated here. Beyond that framing, CFO Jacky Lo's numeric walkthrough was notably candid about a cause outside management's control: he attributed part of the quarter's GTV softness to "increased number of holidays in Indonesia during April and June" affecting On-Demand specifically - a genuine seasonal factor distinct from the deliberate incentive-driven decline, and one this post has separated out in the On-Demand section above rather than folding both causes into a single number.
On competition, both Catherine Hindra Sutjahyo (On-Demand president) and Melissa Siska Juminto (E-Commerce president) confirmed rivals had grown "more aggressive" through the back half of the quarter and into 3Q, but neither offered a concrete plan beyond citing an ongoing internal "strategy review" to be detailed on the next call - the second time in one call a direct question got a "more color next quarter" answer, which is exactly what this quarter's Prescription above flags as something to stop repeating.
Target Valuation Range
Enterprise value ~Rp107.4 trillion (~$7.13B), implying ~4.3x EV/Gross Revenue (TTM) - essentially unchanged from last quarter's ~4.3x. GoTo is fairly valued to modestly undervalued at current levels if the Contribution Margin turn holds through 4Q23's Adjusted EBITDA target - but the CEO transition and the accelerating ATU decline are exactly the kind of execution-risk wildcards a peer-multiple snapshot can't price in, and the market's flat reaction this quarter suggests it's waiting for more evidence, not yet convinced either way.
| Market cap → enterprise value | 2Q23 |
|---|---|
| Share price (period-end) | Rp110 |
| Shares outstanding | 1,062.9B (net of 121.5B treasury; up from ~1,028.9B basis used in prior posts as SBC vested) |
| Market capitalization | Rp116.9T (~$7.76B) |
| Total liabilities | ~Rp15.9T |
| Less: cash and equivalents | ~Rp25.4T |
| Enterprise value | Rp107.4T (~$7.13B) |
Market cap is modestly above the ~$7.47B at the 1Q23 close, tracking the small price recovery from Rp109 to Rp110.
| Peer-multiple sanity check | 1Q23 (TTM) | 2Q23 (TTM) |
|---|---|---|
| Gross revenue | ~Rp23.65T (~$1.57B) | ~Rp24.71T (~$1.64B) |
| Net revenue | ~Rp13.18T (~$877M) | ~Rp16.66T (~$1.11B) |
| Enterprise value | ~$6.72B | ~$7.13B |
| EV/Gross Revenue | ~4.3x | ~4.3x |
| EV/Net Revenue | ~7.7x | ~4.3x |
EV/Gross Revenue is essentially unchanged, meaning the market hasn't re-rated the business up or down materially despite the Contribution Margin turn holding for a second quarter. EV/Net Revenue fell sharply because net revenue's much faster growth (driven by the incentive cuts) is compressing this multiple mechanically, not because the market is pricing the business any differently.
DCF (base/bull/bear, illustrative only): The FY2023 Adjusted EBITDA guidance range was narrowed this quarter to -Rp4.5 trillion to -Rp3.8 trillion (from -Rp5.3 trillion to -Rp4.6 trillion), a real tightening toward the profitable end that gives a firmer near-term anchor than 1Q23's wider range. In place of a full DCF, each scenario applies an illustrative EV/Gross-Revenue multiple to the same ~Rp24.71T TTM gross revenue used in the Current row, then bridges to market cap/per-share price using the current Rp15.9T liabilities and Rp25.4T cash - a sanity-check exercise, not a modeled DCF:
| Scenario | Key assumption | Multiple | Implied value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Current (2Q23 close) | actual market price, for reference | ~4.3x EV/Gross Revenue (implied) | Rp110/share (~$7.13B EV) |
| Bear | the ATU decline has now accelerated for a third straight quarter (-10% in 1Q23, -21% in 2Q23) rather than stabilizing, and a new CEO's strategy review - with no specifics yet disclosed - is itself a source of execution uncertainty layered on top of an already-shrinking user base | ~3x, compressing back toward the 4Q22 low | ~Rp79/share - illustrative sanity check, not a modeled DCF |
| Base | GoTo hits the narrowed FY2023 Adjusted EBITDA guidance and the new CEO's TAM-broadening strategy (Hemat products, GoTransit) begins showing up in ATU figures by 4Q23 or 1Q24, without a return to unsustainable incentive spending, backed by the Rp25.4T cash position plus Rp3.1T remaining undrawn credit facility | ~4.3x, roughly the current multiple holding flat | ~Rp110/share - illustrative sanity check, not a modeled DCF |
| Bull | the new CEO's ecosystem-integration push accelerates faster than guided, TikTok Shop/Lazada competitive pressure proves manageable without a return to incentive wars | ~6x, re-rating toward the multiple last seen in 3Q22 | ~Rp148/share - illustrative sanity check, not a modeled DCF |
Reverse DCF: Solving backward from the ~$7.13 billion enterprise value implies the market is pricing in continued margin discipline without much credit yet for a growth reacceleration story - consistent with a business priced on what it's already proven (cost control) rather than on what a brand-new CEO has only promised (renewed growth).
GoTo's 2Q 2023 Results presentation and earnings call transcript (July 2023), and GoTo's own unaudited interim consolidated financial statements as of and for the six-month period ended June 30, 2023.