TikTok Shop is projected to take a 13.2 per cent share of Southeast Asia’s e-commerce market in 2023, upending the hierarchy established by regional incumbents. The platform is tracking toward a gross merchandise value target of US$15 billion this year, according to data from venture builder Momentum Works.
That volume represents more than a threefold jump from the US$4.4 billion recorded across the region in 2022. The rapid expansion pulls the ByteDance unit into direct parity with Indonesian market leader Tokopedia, which holds an estimated 13.9 per cent share, while closing the gap on Lazada at 17.7 per cent.
Beauty Baskets Drive Volume Growth
Personal care and beauty products form the engine of the platform’s regional expansion. The category accounts for 84 per cent of all products sold on TikTok Shop and generates 70 per cent of its total gross merchandise value.
Merchants and cosmetics brands rely heavily on product bundling strategies across their livestreams to push average order values higher. By pairing skin creams, lip tints and cleansers into discounted kits, sellers generate bulk purchases from viewers watching real-time product demonstrations.
The concentration in beauty mirrors the early development of social commerce in mainland China, where low-ticket impulse buys established initial buying habits before consumers shifted toward consumer electronics and household goods.
Shopee Steps Up Indonesian Livestream Battle
Market leader Shopee still retains the dominant regional footprint with a projected 46.5 per cent market share for 2023. Sea Group is responding directly by diverting resources into its own live shopping features to defend its merchant base in major markets like Indonesia.
During its 7.7 campaign in Indonesia, Shopee logged a 12-fold increase in transaction volumes through livestreaming channels compared to a standard trading day, Sea Group chief executive Forrest Li told analysts on an earnings call. That spending shift demonstrates how legacy marketplace operators must now pay to defend engagement formats they once treated as optional add-ons.
For consumer brands and multi-channel retailers across Southeast Asia, the fragmentation of platform market share alters commercial use. Sellers no longer rely entirely on Shopee search placements or Lazada campaign days to clear inventory. Instead, marketing budgets are flowing toward video creator networks, changing merchant acquisition costs and logistics routing across Jakarta.
Disruption Tests Traditional Network Effects
Established marketplaces long operated under the assumption that vast merchant catalogs and established logistics routes created insurmountable defenses. The surge of video-led buying breaks that pattern by pulling purchasing directly into entertainment feeds.
“The bigger narrative is that in ecommerce, where leading players seem to have a network effect and structural advantage, disruption can still happen, and the incumbents should always remain focused and vigilant,” Chen said in a statement.
Weihan Chen, insights lead at Momentum Works, noted that incumbents face structural pressure regardless of whether TikTok Shop operates as an isolated social platform or a full-scale marketplace operator.
The threat is particularly sharp in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s biggest retail economy, where ByteDance has staged extensive offline merchant recruitment drives and creator summits. Having reached scale in beauty, the platform now faces the harder operational test of building delivery networks and merchant infrastructure capable of handling bulkier, higher-value consumer goods without margin erosion.
Momentum Works is scheduled to release the complete market share dataset across Southeast Asia’s digital commerce sector in an upcoming research report, outlining full-year regional gross merchandise volume tallies.