Yeahka's AI Play: Redefining Loyalty in Southeast Asia's F&B Market

HONG KONG – November 26, 2025 – Payment services giant Yeahka Limited has reported a dramatic acceleration of its overseas business, driven by a strategic pivot towards artificial intelligence and value-added services in Southeast Asia's booming food and beverage sector. The company announced that its overseas gross payment value (GPV) for the third quarter of 2025 reached approximately RMB 1.3 billion, a figure that not only represents a 50% increase over the previous quarter but also surpasses its entire overseas GPV for the full year of 2024.

At the heart of this expansion is Yeahka's investment in Fushi Technology, an AI services provider empowering regional and global brands to navigate the complexities of digital consumer engagement. This move signals a broader shift in the market, moving beyond simple payment processing to offering sophisticated tools that build lasting customer loyalty and drive sustainable growth.

The AI-Powered Loyalty Revolution

Yeahka's strategic foresight is evident in its backing of Fushi Technology, which it has supported since 2019 and in which it holds a significant equity interest. Fushi is deploying its flagship product, Fynix, an all-in-one intelligent customer loyalty and marketing platform, to help merchants tackle persistent industry challenges like high customer acquisition costs and low conversion rates.

The Fynix platform is designed to fundamentally change how businesses approach their clientele, encouraging a strategic shift from a costly "traffic-driven mindset" to a more profitable "customer retention-focused strategy." By integrating membership management, automated marketing, user analytics, and loyalty incentive systems into a single dashboard, it allows brands to manage the entire customer lifecycle without juggling multiple, disconnected software solutions.

What sets Fynix apart in a crowded market is its deep integration of AI and its focus on creating a closed-loop growth mechanism. Each customer interaction—be it a purchase, a query, or a loyalty point redemption—is converted into a data asset. The platform's intelligent analysis then triggers personalized marketing campaigns, creating a virtuous cycle of data, analysis, engagement, and repurchase. This continuous flywheel is designed to steadily boost customer lifetime value, a critical metric in the F&B industry's notoriously tight-margin environment.

A Blueprint for Southeast Asian Growth

The timing for such a platform could not be better. Southeast Asia's F&B market, valued at over US$667 billion in 2023, is on a trajectory to hit US$900 billion by 2028. This growth is fueled by rapid urbanization, high smartphone penetration, and a burgeoning digital economy. The region's online food delivery market alone reached US$19.3 billion in 2024 and continues to expand at a double-digit rate.

However, this digital gold rush presents its own set of challenges. Merchants are often overwhelmed by the need to compete for online visibility while struggling to measure the return on their marketing investments. Fushi Technology has identified this pain point, offering a solution that emphasizes the maximization of existing customer value rather than the endless pursuit of new traffic. By providing tools for in-depth data analysis and flexible marketing campaigns—from digital stamp cards to prepaid value services—Fynix empowers businesses to make data-driven decisions and achieve high-conversion results at a lower cost.

Yeahka's investment in and partnership with Fushi serves as a powerful blueprint for penetrating high-growth overseas markets. By combining its own established payment infrastructure with Fushi's innovative SaaS solutions, Yeahka is building a comprehensive ecosystem that offers tangible value to merchants, making it an indispensable partner for digital transformation.

From Bubble Tea to Big Data: A Case Study in Transformation

The real-world impact of this strategy is best seen through Fushi's collaboration with prominent brands. PlayMade, a renowned handcrafted bubble tea chain in Southeast Asia, stands out as a prime example. Facing intense competition, the brand has leveraged Fushi's CRM solution to build a customized branded app and online ordering system, fundamentally upgrading its customer loyalty programs and marketing automation.

Independent reports on PlayMade's digital initiatives align with the benefits promised by Fynix. The brand has seen a 200% boost in customer engagement through the use of AI-driven marketing content, while hybrid kiosks and a mobile app have cut ordering times by 25% and increased sales per outlet by as much as 20%. These results showcase a successful transition towards a data-driven operational model that enhances both efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Looking ahead, the partnership is set to deepen with the launch of an AI Agent ordering system integrated into the PlayMade app. This feature will allow customers to use natural language—via voice or text—to inquire about products, receive personalized recommendations, and place orders conversationally. This innovation is expected to further elevate the user experience and drive higher order conversion rates, creating a significant competitive barrier in the crowded beverage market. Fushi's client roster, which includes global giants like Starbucks, MUJI, and Pizza Hut across over 20,000 stores, underscores the broad applicability and appeal of its platform.

Navigating a Competitive Digital Frontier

Yeahka and Fushi are not operating in a vacuum. Southeast Asia's digital landscape is dominated by powerful "super apps" like Grab and Gojek, which command massive market share in food delivery and payments and offer their own integrated loyalty programs. However, the Fynix platform's specialization and advanced AI capabilities offer a compelling alternative for brands seeking more control and deeper insights into their customer base.

By providing a dedicated, highly customizable CRM and marketing automation engine, Fushi allows brands to own their customer data and build direct relationships, a crucial advantage in an era of third-party platform dependency. Furthermore, Fushi's commitment to localizing its SaaS products for the diverse markets of Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia demonstrates a nuanced understanding that one-size-fits-all solutions often fall short.

As Chinese tech firms and F&B brands continue to expand into Southeast Asia, they bring with them advanced operational methodologies and intensify competition. This trend only increases the urgency for local and regional players to adopt sophisticated digital tools to defend and grow their market share. In this dynamic environment, Yeahka's strategy of empowering merchants with vertically-focused, AI-enhanced technologies positions it not just as a payment processor, but as a key enabler of future-ready, differentiated competitiveness for consumer brands across the entire Asia-Pacific region.