- Shopee, Tiki, and Lazada lead the market in website traffic.
- Sendo is improving quickly, surpassed Thegioididong, and threatening Lazada’s position.
- Voso.vn, newcomer from Viettel Post, increased 12 times in traffic and appears in the list for the first time.
Similar to previous years, consumer demands for e-commerce in Q2 is slightly lower than the quarter before. However, there has been a significant growth compared to the same time period last year. Competition-wise, Lazada continues to lag behind Shopee and Tiki in web traffic, while Sendo shows big improvement and enters the national top 4 for the first time, according to iPrice’s Map of e-Commerce.
Shopee and Tiki lead in web traffic, Sendo shows big improvement
According to iPrice Group’s Vietnam Map of e-Commerce for quarter 2, similar to the previous two quarters, Shopee and Tiki continue to hold on to the top two spots of e-Commerce merchants with highest average monthly website traffic. Shopee earned 38.5 million visits per month, while Tiki earned 33.7 million visits per month.
This also marks the third consecutive quarter that the Vietnam-based Tiki has surpassed the Alibaba-backed Lazada in this aspect. Lazada Vietnam earned 28.3 million visits per month in quarter 2 and once again lag behind their two biggest competitors in the country.
Chart: e-Commerce websites in Vietnam with the highest average monthly web traffic for Q2/2019, Source: iPrice
This past quarter brought about many significant changes for Lazada Vietnam. Last July, they appointed James Dong to the position of Country CEO in place of Max Zhang, who had only been in this position for a year. Mr. Dong will hold this position in concurrent with his duty as Lazada Thailand’s CEO. According to iPrice’s data, Lazada has been performing well in Thailand, earning traffic high enough to lead the country and leave their main rival, Shopee Thailand, behind. Therefore, with this appointment, Lazada is hoping to replicate their success in Thailand in Vietnam.
Before that, in June, Lazada also announced a branding makeover across the region, aiming to make themselves more relatable and more appealing for the young consumer segment.
Besides the top three which shows no changes compared to quarter 1, the most noticeable improvement in the ranking comes from Sendo. Sendo’s average monthly web traffic increased by an impressive 10%, rising from 25.3 million to 28 million visits. This result helps them to enter the national top 4 for the first time ever, surpassing Thegioididong. More importantly, iPrice noted that Sendo is the only merchant in the top 5 which did not record a decrease in web traffic for this quarter.
With this surge in traffic, Sendo has come very near to Lazada in the ranking. The web traffic difference between them is now less than 300,000 visits per month. Considering that only a year ago, this difference was more than 16 million visits per month, Sendo, an FPT Corporation subsidiary, has truly come a long way.
Chart: the top 4 e-Commerce merchants’ progress in web traffic in the last 5 quarters, Source: iPrice & SimilarWeb
In a recent press report, Trần Hải Linh – CEO of Sendo, shared that he attributed the company’s recent success to their C2C model, which brought them a huge amount of products within a short period of time, and their understanding of the Vietnamese market, which has become their advantage against foreign competitors.
Online shopping demand dropped slightly in Q2
Overall, iPrice’s data shows a slight decrease in market demand for online shopping this last quarter. In particular, 6 out of the 10 merchants leading the market witnessed a web traffic decrease compared to Q1.
However, analysts from the researching division comment that this is not a worrying sign for the Vietnamese e-Commerce industry and is instead only an expected seasonal trend of the market. iPrice points out that during this same time period in 2018, the average web traffic of the market also decreased significantly yet quickly picked up again a quarter later.
iPrice attributes this trend to a fall in market demand for fashion and consumer products compared the annual peak which is the period before Lunar New Year in February. The researchers also predicted that as big annual sales festivals like 7/7 or 9/9 are fast approaching, the market should be back to its growth rate by next quarter.
Voso.vn’s web traffic grew 12 times in one month
Voso.vn, the latest merchant to join the competitive e-Commerce market, was included in iPrice’s list of top 50 Vietnamese e-Commerce merchants for quarter 2, even though the website was only officially launched by Viettel Post Corporation earlier this month.
Coming in as number 50 in the ranking, Voso.vn is still considered by the researchers as a potential big player. iPrice noted that during June, Voso.vn’s web traffic increased by 12 times compared to May. This achievement once again confirms Viettel Post Corporation’s ambition for Voso.vn. The company does not hesitate to express this ambition by clearly announcing their aim to make Voso.vn the number one e-Commerce website in Vietnam.
Chart: Voso.vn’s web traffic for the last three months, Source: iPrice & SimilarWeb
Commenting on the merchant’s chance, iPrice noted that they have some very important advantages, such as the already established delivery network of Viettel Post, as well as their connections to Viettel Telecom and ViettelPay, both of which can become affective channels for consumer outreach.
With this addition of Voso.vn, the e-Commerce race in Vietnam is far from decided.
By iPrice Insights