Lazada leads Southeast Asia e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia with more than 50 million annual active buyers, according to Lazada group chief executive, Pierre Poignant. Besides, he also adds that the platform has grown triple digits for the past three quarters.
This comment comes after many mentioned Shopee as the most popular e-commerce platform in the region. For instance, online shopping aggregator iPrice, recently placed Shopee as having the highest number of monthly active users, downloads, and site visits in the region. That report came in the second quarter this year.
However, Lazada led in terms of monthly active users in four countries in the region. That countries include Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines. Those countries are the major e-commerce markets in the region.
Read also: Shopee Leads SEA E-Commerce Market, Again
Meanwhile, Tokopedia took the lead in Indonesia and Shopee was No.1 in Vietnam.
Lazada Competition in the region
Lazada is a Singapore-based firm. It is currently up against other e-commerce platforms in the region, like Shopee as well as Tokopedia and Bukalapak in Indonesia. They are all fighting for market share in the fast-growing, billion-dollar e-commerce market.
Southeast Asia is a strategic region because it’s an increasingly affluent population of more than 600 million people. Those people are relatively new to online shopping and come with a variety of different languages, customs, and shopping habits.
Therefore, what works in one market does not necessarily work in another.
The business
In 2016, Alibaba Group Holding initially acquired a controlling stake in the firm with a US$1 billion investment. The following year, Alibaba put in another US$1 billion in the firm to raise its stake to 83%.
Meanwhile, last year, Alibaba doubled down on Lazada with a US$2 billion investment aimed at accelerating its expansion.
Alibaba also made changes to Lazada’s business model, launching LazMall that offered branded products and premium services. Besides, Lazada’s technology platform was revamped and in September last year, Alibaba said that it had brought in 200,000 high-quality merchants from China onto the Lazada platform.
Therefore, the platform has become more asset-light like Alibaba’s e-commerce platforms Taobao Marketplace and Tmall. It serves primarily as a transaction platform for third-party sellers and buyers.
