This past quarter, Shopee and Lazada continue to compete for leading positions in Southeast Asia, putting a strong emphasis on mobile e-commerce. Despite that, Tokopedia, Bukalapak, Tiki and Sendo are still making great strides, according to a new report by iPrice Group and App Annie.
Shopee and Lazada neck-and-neck on mobile
This report is the result of a partnership between price aggregator iPrice Group, App Annie, and SimilarWeb.
Both Shopee and Lazada e-commerce platforms have strong mobile applications with high numbers of users in the third quarter of 2019. Lazada topped the rankings in four out of the six countries: Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Meanwhile, Shopee ranks first in this ranking in Indonesia and Vietnam, two e-commerce markets predicted by Google for having the highest growth potential in Southeast Asia.
Besides these two companies, some other notable mobile e-commerce applications in Southeast Asia are from Indonesia’s Tokopedia and Bukalapak, and Vietnam’s Sendo and Tiki.
Specifically, the mobile applications of these four companies ranked 3rd, 4th, 8th, and 9th respectively in the whole region in terms of monthly active users. Tokopedia and Sendo also appeared in the regional top 5 for the highest number of app downloads in Q3.
While Tokopedia and Bukalapak both have officially achieved the unicorn status, Sendo and Tiki are also assessed by Google in their e-Conomy SEA 2019 report as having potential to become future technology unicorns.
Shopee and Lazada competing for app users in Southeast Asia, Source: iPrice Map of E-Commerce, Q3 2019
Domestic e-commerce websites are on the rise
While Southeast Asian mobile e-commerce competition for the number 1 spot continues to be between Shopee and Lazada, domestic companies are gaining the advantage on the web platform.
In Indonesia, Tokopedia continues to lead the ranking of website traffic in the third quarter. According to some sources, the company is setting an ambition to raise capital up to US$1.5 billion.
In Vietnam, Sendo, Thegioididong, and Tiki all ranked above Lazada in terms of monthly website traffic. This quarter also marks the first time Sendo enters the top two in Vietnam. After many quarters of website traffic growth, Sendo has recently completed raising $61 million in additional funding.
Most visited e-commerce websites in Southeast Asia, Source: Source: iPrice Map of E-Commerce, Q3 2019
E-commerce trends in 2019
The report also uncovered some new trends in Southeast Asian e-commerce since the beginning of 2019.
The report shows that 9 out of 10 applications with the highest number of users in this quarter belong to multi-category e-commerce platforms, with only one belongs to a company specialized in a single category (Zalora). This shows that when doing online shopping on mobile, Southeast Asian consumers tend to prefer apps that offer a wide selection of items.
Following the same trend, the report highlights the sudden ascent in popularity of Wish – an e-commerce application from the US – in Southeast Asian markets.
Within only a quarter, Wish has crept into the top 10 ranking of e-commerce applications in 5 out of 6 countries (except Vietnam) and is now the 4th most downloaded e-commerce application in the region. In the US, Wish is well known for offering a wide range of niche products at low prices.
Finally, a pronounced trend highlighted is the rise of ‘shoppertainment’ – the combination of shopping and entertainment – in Southeast Asia.
Specifically, within this year, almost all major e-commerce stores in the region begin featuring livestream right in their shopping apps and working with entertainment superstars to attract shoppers to their sales events.
Lazada first launched this feature in March and invited singer Dua Lipa to perform live on their birthday show. Shopee launched the same feature in June and signed with football superstar Ronaldo for their September shopping campaign.
During the last 11/11 shopping festival, Shopee Philippines held a livestream that lasted 12 hours. During this event, many gifts and discount codes were awarded, including 5 new iPhone 11 phones.
In Vietnam, after a trial period, in September, before the year-end shopping holidays, Tiki also launched their TikiLIVE feature right in their mobile application. After this feature was launched, Tiki climbed up one rank of the download ranking in Vietnam, surpassing Lazada and reaching the top 3 nationwide.
See the detailed data and download the full report here.