Brown-Kenyon: More investments need to be made to establish standards and to gain deeper insights into the nature of users.
Southeast Asia is the world’s fastest-growing internet region, where it is predicted that the internet economy is on a steep growth trajectory and expected to reach $240 billion by 2025, according to Google and Temasek.
E-commerce is the fastest-growing sector within the internet economy, and is projected to reach $102 billion in gross merchandise value by 2025.
On this note, Southeast Asians are the most active mobile internet users globally. Specifically, more than 90 per cent of Southeast Asians are connected to the internet primarily through their smartphones last year.
With this, meta-search price comparison website iPrice has released its map of e-commerce to reveal the best performing e-commerce companies in Southeast Asia for the second quarter of this year.
“We do not believe that the e-commerce landscape is dominated by one absolute company today, as our findings show a clear trend that there is still much room for growth, ” said iPrice Group president and chief operating officer Paul Brown-Kenyon.
“Rather, the question is which players are executing the right strategies, business models and mindset to capture the vast potential of the region in the next decade. We also believe that more investments need to be made in this industry to establish standards and to gain deeper insights into the nature of its users,” said Brown-Kenyon.
Key highlights on the most interesting findings from the quarterly report include the following:
Lazada maintains its leading position with the most monthly actively users (MAU) on its mobile app in four country-specific markets for the second quarter of this year.
The company’s mobile app ranked first in active users in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. On its website platform, Lazada garnered more than 174 million visitors (this combines regional, desktop and mobile web users).
Shopee obtained the most MAU and is the most downloaded mobile e-commerce shopping app in Southeast Asia for the second quarter.
Shopee’s website is also the most visited platform, garnering more than 200 million visitors in the same period.
Indonesian e-commerce companies Tokopedia and Bukalapak performed well in Southeast Asia although only available in a single market (Indonesia). Both e-commerce companies’ mobile app ranked third and fourth, respectively, with the highest MAU and highest number of total downloads in the region for the period.
The two Indonesian companies also ranked third and fourth most visited platforms (desktop and mobile web) in the region in the same period.
Presently, the e-commerce sector in Southeast Asia is largely driven by the region’s most active markets – Indonesia with high active user retention, and Vietnam with the emphasis on user acquisition.
The second quarter is considered as the most important period of the year for Indonesian e-commerce companies such as Tokopedia and Bukalapak.
Three significant events took place in Indonesia during this period – Ramadan, Hari Raya festive season and the general elections.
Even though the second quarter is considered as a non-peak period for the Vietnamese market, Sendo was highly successful in garnering a high number of downloads.
Its success in acquiring a high number of potential new users were probably due to their mobile-first approach and social media campaigns targeting rural areas. According to Sendo CEO Tran Hai Linh, almost 70 per cent of Sendo’s orders derived from non-urban areas.
Meanwhile, Chinese investment into Southeast Asia’s e-commerce platforms has been instrumental in the success of prominent companies in the region. Among the key investors are Alibaba, JD.com, and LightInTheBox which aided the establishment of actively used e-commerce platforms in the region such as Lazada, Tokopedia, and ezbuy.
Most e-commerce apps backed by Alibaba are ranked top five, and list highest monthly active users.
E-commerce apps with JD.com investment like Tiki in Vietnam, JD Central in Thailand, and JD.ID in Indonesia also gained high monthly active users in the second quarter.
Despite the meteoric rise of mobile app shopping, 46 per cent of online purchases happen in websites and not in apps across the Asia-Pacific.
“Therefore, it is vital to gauge at website performances in order to fully understand the Southeast Asian e-commerce scene. With data from SimilarWeb, we collected data on average monthly web traffic of major e-commerce players across the region,” said Brown Kenyon.
Shopee and Lazada continue to take the top two spots after achieving the same feat in the first quarter of this year. The two companies have a big presence in all six countries analysed. The Star (Malaysia)
