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Tag: shopee

  • Shopee to shut its Poland operations today

    Shopee to shut its Poland operations today

    Southeast Asia’s largest e-commerce firm Shopee will close its Polish operations from the end of Friday, Shopee Polska announced on its website on Thursday.

    “The fact itself is perhaps not a big surprise, since Shopee has already withdrawn from some of its markets, and a few months ago it cut some of its jobs in Poland, so the expectations were rather that they will leave the Polish market as well”, said Wood&Co analyst Lukasz Wachelko.

    Shopee has been operating in Poland since the autumn of 2021.

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  • Grab sees no big layoffs despite weak market

    Grab sees no big layoffs despite weak market

    Grab , Southeast Asia’s biggest ride-hailing and food delivery firm, does not envisage having to undertake mass layoffs as some rivals have done, and is selectively hiring, while reining in its financial service ambitions.

    Chief Operating Officer Alex Hungate said that earlier in the year, Grab had been worried about a global recession and was “very careful and judicious about any hiring”, and as a result, it had not got to the “desperate” point of a hiring freeze or mass layoffs.

    “Around mid-year, we did some kind of specific reorganisations, but I know other companies have been doing mass layoffs, so we don’t see ourselves in that category,” Hungate, 56, told Reuters in his first interview since joining Singapore-based Grab Holdings Ltd in January.

    The company was hiring for roles in data science, mapping technology and other specialised areas though every hire was a much bigger decision than it used to be, he said.

    “You want to make sure that we’re conserving capital. The hurdle for making a hire has definitely been raised.”

    Decade-old Grab, a household name in Southeast Asia, had about 8,800 staff at the end of 2021. Like its rivals, it has benefited from a boom in food services during the COVID-19 pandemic, while ride-hailing suffered.

    As economies open up, food delivery demand is softening while ride-hailing has yet to recover fully. Tech valuations have also fallen dramatically and inflation, slower growth and rising interest rates have emerged as risks.

    In recent weeks, Southeast Asia’s largest e-commerce firm Shopee cut jobs in various countries and shut some overseas operations after parent Sea reported widening losses and scrapped its annual e-commerce forecast.

    Hungate, a veteran of the financial services, logistics and food sectors, has spearheaded a push away from low-margin business lines as Grab races to turn profitable.

    Second-quarter loss narrowed to $572 million from $801 million a year earlier. But last month, it cut its gross merchandise volume outlook for the year, blaming a strong dollar and ebbing food delivery demand.

    Last month, Grab said it was shutting dozens of so-called dark stores – distribution hubs for on-demand groceries and slowing the roll-out of its “cloud kitchen” centralised facilities for deliveries.

    “The other area where we’ve really tightened our strategic intent is in financial services where we were growing payments, wallets and non-bank financial lending quite significantly off-platform and on our platform,” said Hungate.

    Grab reorganised its fintech unit this year to focus on more lucrative areas and Reuters reported on the exit of some senior executives.

    Grab is now mainly focussing on selling its lending products and insurance on its platform to merchants and drivers who often repay from their income streams on the platform.

    “As we make this shift, the business mix will move towards higher margins,” said Hungate.

    Grab, which operates in 480 cities in eight countries, has more than five million registered drivers and more than two million merchants on its platform.

    It caught global attention in 2018 when it acquired Uber’s Southeast Asian business after a costly five-year battle.

    Grab is betting on growing financial services by offering banking and other products with partner Singapore Telecommunications in key markets.

    It listed on the Nasdaq in December after a record $40 billion merger with a blank-check company.

    Hungate said it was “good timing” for the company to look again at how it spends money, given the increased scrutiny of finances and the need to respond to shareholders.

    “Maybe we were lucky in a sense that the discipline of being a public company came at just the right time,” he said, adding that Grab’s $7.7 billion cash liquidity meant it was one of the best capitalised industry players in Southeast Asia.

    Grab’s shares have tumbled about 60% this year to give it a market value of $10.6 billion.

    Reuters reported last month that Grab’s Indonesian rival GoTo was seeking to raise about $1 billion through a convertible bond issue.

    Hungate said Grab would provide details of its progress towards profitability and other metrics at its first investor day on Tuesday.

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  • Tech workers left hanging as Shopee rescinds job offers

    Tech workers left hanging as Shopee rescinds job offers

    Southeast Asia’s largest e-commerce firm Shopee has rescinded dozens of job offers in the past two weeks, sources said, a move that began shortly after parent company Sea Ltd reported widening losses and sharply slower revenue growth.

    Four people interviewed by Reuters who have participated in a WeChat group of some 60 people that was set up to discuss Shopee’s withdrawal of offers said their offers were pulled just days before they were due to begin work.

    One 27-year-old engineer who asked that only his first name Wang be used said his call came a week after arriving in Singapore, having quit a job in Shanghai with TikTok owner Bytedance.

    “I thought it was a scam call … until I realised it was a widespread rescinding of offers by Shopee,” said Wang, who had by then paid an advance to rent a house.

    Singapore-based Sea said it had recently cancelled some offers at Shopee but declined to say how many.

    “Due to adjustments to hiring plans on some tech teams, a number of roles at Shopee are no longer available. We are working closely to support those affected,” a company representative said.

    The move follows other recent job cuts at Sea. Staff at Booyah!, a gaming livestream app, which is part of Sea’s gaming unit Garena, were told they would be let go and the app would no longer be updated, separate sources have told Reuters, adding that projects at Sea’s development unit were also shut down.

    Earlier this year, media reports also said Shopee had shed headcount in Southeast Asia, Mexico and Latin America. Shopee declined to comment on those reports.

    Pessimistic Tone

    As recently as March, Sea said it would continue to invest in Shopee, which competes with Alibaba Group Holding’s Southeast Asian arm Lazada, and that growth for the unit remained at the top of its mind.

    But last month, Sea withdrew its e-commerce forecast for the year. Founder and CEO Forrest Li noted an increasingly uncertain market environment and stressed the need to prioritise profitability and efficiency. Sea reported a net loss of $931 million in the second quarter, more than double the loss it made in the same period a year earlier.

    “Their tone has never been more pessimistic,” said Ke Yan, lead analyst at Singapore-based DZT Research, who added that Sea’s strategy of using Garena’s cash flow to compensate for Shopee’s cash burn was unsustainable.

    Sea’s handling of the layoffs was “ugly and embarrassing” and likely to hurt its reputation, he said.

    Sea saw its market value soar to more than $200 billion last October as its Garena unit surged in popularity during the pandemic but its shares have tumbled since then and are now worth just $27 billion.

    Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower said relevant authorities were aware of complaints about Shopee and it was in touch with the company to find out more, but it also said in such situations the parties should work out an amicable solution in good faith.

    The four people interviewed by Reuters said that as compensation Shopee has offered a month’s salary and in cases where people have flown from abroad, it will reimburse the cost of flight tickets and temporary accommodation.

    While the potential for legal action has been discussed in the WeChat Group, those left hanging by Shopee are most concerned with finding new work.

    “The cost of taking legal action is too high. I just want to move on and find a new job,” said one of the four people interviewed by Reuters who declined to be identified.

    For his part, Wang wants to continue his job search in Singapore.

    “The cost of returning to China is too huge, it is very hard to find a new job given the economic situation there,” he said.

  • Shopee culls staff across SE Asia, Europe

    Shopee culls staff across SE Asia, Europe

    Sea Group’s e-commerce arm Shopee is laying off staff across multiple markets as it seeks to rationalize its e-commerce business, DealStreetAsia has learned.

    The layoffs have affected employees across several of the company’s Southeast Asian markets including Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam, sources told DealStreetAsia. The company is said to have emailed employees affected by the layoffs, the sources added.

    Shopee’s payments arm ShopeePay and food delivery business ShopeeFood are also said to be facing cuts. A general meeting was also reportedly held on Monday to address the job cuts with Shopee employees.

    The extent of the job cuts and the number of employees affected could not be confirmed at the time of publishing. DealStreetAsia has reached out to Shopee for comment.

    Two sources aware of the matter said nearly half of Shopee Thailand’s payment and food delivery teams have been affected by the downsizing. One of the sources noted that the email was said to have been managed in an off-handed manner, with the company asking staff members to return home and await further notice of termination.

    A separate source told DealStreetAsia that Shopee has stopped hiring, with several job offers for regional roles rescinded.

    While Sea Group’s business continues to show signs of improvement in overall profitability, most of its revenue continues to come from its gaming arm Garena.

    Sea Group’s first-quarter 2022 financials reflected a 64.4% year-on-year increase in Generally Accepted Accounting Principles revenue at $2.9 billion, with gross profits soaring 81.3% to $1.2 billion over the same period.

    Shopee’s business, while still losing money, has also reflected improvements, with a 71.3% year-on-year increase in orders to $1.9 billion in the first quarter of 2022 while gross merchandise value rose 38.7% to $17.4 billion. Importantly, Shopee’s gross profit margin for e-commerce increased year on year, with faster growth in transaction-based fees and advertising income generating higher margins versus other value-added services.

    Shopee, however, continues to face several macro headwinds, including rising inflation and interest rates, that may dampen retail and consumption sectors.

    The company also appears to be facing setbacks on some of its ambitious internationalization plans, including its forays into Europe and Latin America. Shopee, which has operations in Poland and Spain, decided to pull out of France after only five months as it was not meeting expectations.

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  • Lazada appoints new group CEO

    Lazada appoints new group CEO

    Alibaba’s Southeast Asian e-commerce arm, Lazada, has named James Dong as its new group CEO as the region’s Shopee-dominated competition steps up.

    In his new role, Dong wil oversee Lazada’s expansion plan into Euroupe. The 42-year-old CEO will succeed Chun Li, who will continue serve as adviser to the group’s chairman Jiang Fan and member of Lazada’s board of directors.

    Formerly with McKinsey & Co, Dong was head of globalisation strategy and corporate development role at Alibaba Group before joining Lazada as CEO of Lazada Thailand and Vietnam in 2018.

    He has subsequently handed up the leadership of Vietnam unit to Kaya Qin, who has been chief operating officer of Lazada Vietnam since 2018, while remaining in his role as CEO of Thailand.

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  • Central Retail becomes Reebok’s sole Thai distributor

    Central Retail becomes Reebok’s sole Thai distributor

    Sports brand Reebok has appointed CRC Sports, a subsidiary of Central Retail, as its sole distributor in Thailand.

    According to CRC Sports, it will take responsibility for e-commerce operations and the wholesale distribution of Reebok, pushing growth opportunities and aims to make Reebok one of the top five sports brands in Thailand.

    CRC Sports plans to expand Reebok’s network to more than 100 locations this year and enhance Reebok’s online presence through websites and e-commerce marketplaces like Lazada, Shopee and Central.

    “The heritage and potential of Reebok and its product portfolio support our efforts to offer even more of the best sporting trends to the new generation,” said Tony Morton, president of CRC Sports Company.

    “To have a world-renowned sports brand like Reebok in our portfolio helps to solidify our position as the go-to destination for sports apparel, shoes and sports equipment.”

    Other channels such as Click & Collect, Personal Shoppers, Call & Shop, Line Chat & Shop, and Facebook Live events are used to offer retail experiences for Reebok’s customers in Thailand.

  • Shopee to shut down India operations

    Shopee to shut down India operations

    E-commerce and gaming firm Sea said on Monday it is withdrawing from India’s retail market just months after starting operations there, the second pullback this month in an overseas expansion drive, as the loss-making firm faces a weak growth outlook.

    The withdrawal, effective beginning March 29, comes weeks after its e-commerce arm Shopee said it was pulling out of France and after India banned Sea’s popular gaming app “Free Fire”.

    After the ban, the market value of New York-listed Sea dropped by $16 billion in a single day, leading some investors to cut holdings in the Singapore-headquartered company.

    Shopee said in a statement its withdrawal came “in view of global market uncertainties” and that the company would make “the process as smooth as possible”.

    Sea earlier this month said revenue growth of its e-commerce business was expected to halve to around 76 percent this year from a blistering 157 percent in 2021, amid fewer online purchases and engagements as more countries emerge from the pandemic.

    “Due to a drastic shift in the market sentiment towards growth stocks, all these e-commerce companies are under real pressure to at least break even as soon as possible,” said LightStream Research equity analyst Oshadhi Kumarasiri, who publishes on the Smartkarma platform.

    Sea’s U.S.-listed shares fell 3.2 percent to $112.35 in afternoon trading.

    The company’s shares had already dropped 11 percent in January after Chinese tech giant Tencent announced it was selling 14.5 million shares in the group.

    There is no clear evidence that the decision to withdraw from India is based on government pressure or other operational decisions, Citi analyst Alicia Yap said.

    Reuters was the first to report Sea’s decision on its Indian operations.

    Shopee’s India business began in October 2021 as part of an aggressive international push that saw it expand into Europe. Sea’s market cap at the time was as much as $200 billion. It has since dropped to $64.76 billion in March 2022.

    The local unit, Shopee India, recruited local sellers and launched a shopping website and app. India’s fast-growing e-commerce market was already dominated by such players as Amazon.com Inc and Walmart’s Flipkart.

    One person with direct knowledge of the company’s thinking said Shopee’s decision to exit from India was sparked in part by stricter regulatory scrutiny that saw Sea’s gaming app Free Fire banned as part of a crackdown on companies allegedly sending data to servers in China.

    Sea said earlier in March it does not transfer or store data of Indian users in China.

    The person said Shopee had been planning to invest up to $1 billion in India, and that the pullback would hurt Indian logistics firms with whom it had signed lucrative contracts.

    The company, asked to comment on the figure, disputed the number as “not accurate”, without giving details, saying “the decision regarding Shopee India has nothing to do with regulatory matters”.

    “We continue to work on addressing the situation with Free Fire in India,” the firm added.

    Reuters reported in February, citing sources, that Singapore authorities had raised concerns to India over the ban, asking why Sea had been targeted.

    E-commerce players face a strict regulatory environment in India. New Delhi has for years imposed restrictions to protect smaller brick-and-mortar retailers.

    Offline retailers in India have often alleged foreign companies bypass regulations and offer deep discounts that hurt their business, allegations the companies deny. Shopee had in recent months faced boycott calls from such traders in India.

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  • Singaporean logistics unicorn eyes Vietnam as key expansion market

    Singaporean logistics unicorn eyes Vietnam as key expansion market

    Ninja Van, a Singaporean logistics startup and new ASEAN unicorn, is set to drive a broad strategy in Vietnam to benefit from the country’s strong e-logistics market growth.

    After successfully raising $578 million in Series E funding, Ninja Van has officially become an ASEAN “unicorn,”.Dzung Phan, president of Ninja Van, said while revealing the startup’s expansion plans for Vietnam and his assessment of its e-logistics market.

    Why did Ninja Van choose Vietnam as a key investment market?

    We believe Vietnam is ready for a new phase of growth in e-logistics. According to Agility, Vietnam ranks 8th among the top world’s fastest-growing logistics markets and 3rd among ASEAN in 2021. Vietnam E-commerce Association (VECOM) also stated the number of postal parcels sent through express delivery services shot up by 47 percent last year.

    Also, e-logistics is strongly driven by the rapid growth of e-commerce. Vietnam’s e-commerce market expanded an average of 30 percent per annum during the period 2016-2019, from $4 billion (2015) to $11.5 billion (2019). According to VECOM, the market will grow at 29 percent annually in 2020-2025, to reach $52 billion (2025).

    The strong potential of Vietnam’s e-logistics market is a good foundation for our ambitious plan. A market with 600,000 sellers and 49.3 million buyers across e-commerce platforms and social networks will generate significant demand for logistics.

    Leading a new unicorn in the e-logistics industry, how do you assess its competitive advantage in Vietnam?

    The domestic e-logistics market is competitive with several “deep pocket” players. The market comprises three main segments: local shipping companies, international shipping companies, and e-commerce platforms with their own in-house shipping ecosystems.

    Domestic enterprises only account for 20 percent of the logistics market share; the remaining 80 percent belongs to international firms with strengths in capital, technology, and experience. Local firms may be backed by international groups, including GHTK by Kerry and AhaMove by Temasek.

    Although the e-logistics market is vibrant, its growth potential is not fully invested in. A survey showed that 60 percent of sellers and 80 percent of buyers are not satisfied with the current quality of express delivery services. Buyers are frustrated by late delivery or the inability to track the flow, while sellers expect more parcels to be delivered.

    Is pricing a major competitive edge in the current e-logistics market?

    Except for the inhouse shipping units of e-commerce platforms, domestic and international players are using price competitiveness to acquire customers quickly. Whenever there is a “newcomer”, delivery costs will drop significantly to maintain the market share and retain customers. Notable discounts were given at the entry of J&T in 2018 and Best in 2020.

    The average shipping price in the Vietnam market fell continuously by 15-20 percent per year from 2017 to 2020. The trend has a negative impact on smaller domestic players, for example, GNN in 2017 suffered a sharp drop in revenue that led to its liquidation. Even international players without strong financial support cannot survive this market, with DHL e-commerce ceasing operations in Vietnam during 2021.

    How does Ninja Van improve the customer experience? Ninja Van focuses on providing a quality and authentic service experience to customers, rather than on pricing alone. Parcel tracking and recovery services for lost or damaged parcels need to be improved.

    Given a tech-enabled personalization of the customer experience, Ninja Van’s nationwide personal delivery service on the Grab app has stepped up during the Covid-19 pandemic. Additionally, we are strengthening our partnership with e-commerce giants including Shopee, Lazada, Tiki, and Sendo.

    With more than 300,000 orders per day, Ninja Van is among the top three partners on all major platforms in Vietnam. These collaborations brought Ninja Van into the top growth 15 companies in the Asia-Pacific region in 2021 as reported by Financial Times.

    To gain trust, we do all possible to help our customers succeed, such as ensuring timely pickup, prompt delivery without loss. In addition, we understand that our partners are working at a large scale, so we do our utmost to optimize our cost structure and provide an attractive rate.

    As a result, we became the most active provider by offering various value-added services, such as return pickup to Lazada, bulky and super bulky delivery for Tiki, or installation services for Shopee.

    With an additional $578 million in Series E, what is the level of ambition in terms of your expansion strategy?

    – Ninja Van is committed to driving a broad strategy in Vietnam in particular and in ASEAN in general. This strategy will cover all three sectors: operations, technical systems, ecosystems for small and retail customers.

    Specifically, Ninja Van will increase its coverage in 63 cities and provinces to reach 100 percent of the Vietnamese population. We will also prepare an automatic sorting system with a capacity of two million packages at five major cities to increase delivery speed.

    We will build and improve web and mobile application platforms to enhance customer experience. We seek to enable both sellers and buyers to track parcels and make inquiries in real-time.

    Notably, we will broaden our cross-border delivery with two new services: Ninja Direct, which helps Vietnamese sellers look for better sourcing with better rates in multiple countries; and Ninja Crossborder, which helps Vietnamese manufacturers reach out to buyers all over the world.

    Moreover, we will complete business activities for the fourth quarter of 2021. For example, based on our big data analytics, we have opened training courses to detect anomalies and outliers to provide timely resolutions for all customers. In 2020, we created 40 different training modules for our shippers and warehouse staff to avoid recalcitrant buyer behavior on COD free delivery services.

    Ninja Van will launch a promotional campaign in Vietnam “Giao thong suot, Nhan ven nguyen” (Smooth delivery, Parcel intact) to support sellers in the fourth quarter. With all staff vaccinated against Covid-19, Ninja Van will maintain its service delivery price during the pandemic to support hard-hit customers.

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  • Singapore’s Shopee disrupts the Brazil’s e-commerce sector

    Singapore’s Shopee disrupts the Brazil’s e-commerce sector

    Shopee took just two years to become Brazil’s most downloaded shopping app, winning users to its low-cost marketplace with its game-changing approach to e-commerce: in-app mini-games offering coupons to winning users.

    The Singapore-based company has combined online shopping with the gaming nous of its separate mobile game arm Garena – creator of “Free Fire”, Brazil’s most downloaded title for eight consecutive quarters – to generate sales analysts estimated at almost a third of local champion Magazine Luiza.

    Back home, Shopee only needed five years to become Southeast Asia’s most-visited e-commerce website, overtaking the likes of Lazada, backed by China’s Alibaba Group Holding, and Tokopedia, backed by Japan’s SoftBank Group.

    “Shopee has a track record in Southeast Asia of coming into the market late, looking at how others have solved existing problems and then building a system to leapfrog those issues,” said analyst Jianggan Li at advisory firm Momentum Works.<

    Shopee’s early surge highlights the space left for foreign entrants to grow in a sector once dominated by regional firms like Magazine Luiza and Argentina’s MercadoLibre.

    To be sure, the startup’s timing was fortuitous, launching in Brazil just as the COVID-19 pandemic drove consumers away from physical stores, pushing up 2020 e-commerce sales by 44% to $42 billion, showed data from Brazilian payments company EBANX.

    Shopee – akin to Alibaba’s AliExpress, carrying Chinese-made knick-knacks – emerged as Brazil’s top app by downloads and time spent in use, showed data from analytics platform App Annie.

    Yet, in pursuit of growth, Shopee is still losing money, propped up by Sea’s profitable gaming division. In the second quarter of this year, Garena posted adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $740.9 million even as the e-commerce arm lost $579.8 million.

    “Money being generated by one side of the business, which is a cash cow, is being reinvested aggressively in Brazilian e-commerce – with success,” said Itau BBA analyst Thiago Macruz.

    Sea’s Brazil foray is just one element of its global ambition. Investment arm Sea Capital is also considering putting money into startups in Latin America and beyond, said a person with knowledge of the matter, who was not authorized to speak with media and so declined to be identified.

    The firm has also taken Shopee to Chile, Colombia and Mexico where, unlike Brazil, it has no locally based staff and so has partnered social media influencers to increase brand awareness, said two people familiar with the matter.

    Sea, whose shareholders include Chinese gaming leader Tencent Holdings, declined to comment.

    The firm has disclosed little data about Shopee Brazil, but Itau BBA analysts estimated the value of goods and services sold on the platform last year hit 12 billion reais ($2.27 billion).

    The average price on its marketplace is 40 reais, other estimates showed, less than a third that of e-commerce leader MercadoLibre, which often carries higher-value branded products.

    Sea’s biggest challenge for Shopee Brazil is delivery in such a vast country. It reduced its reliance on the local postal system this year in favor of private carriers, but is still competing against rivals with proprietary delivery services.

    Shopee aims to have one main logistics partner per country in the region, a company source said.<

    The company itself expects e-commerce growth in the region to spawn more delivery partnerships, as happened in Southeast Asia, Sea executives told analysts on a call this month.

    On the same call, Group Chief Corporate Officer Yanjun Wang called Brazil “a good market for continued investment.”

    Competition in Latin America’s largest economy stepped up this month when Shopee’s nearest rival in terms of product offering, AliExpress, opened up its marketplace to domestic sellers charging a single-digit commission. AliExpress had been in Brazil for 11 years; Shopee did similarly after its first year.

    Small-business owner Luciana Carvalho began selling plastic packaging products on Shopee in February, attracted by the free shipping and 6% commission – compared with MercadoLibre’s 17%.

    “It’s easy to sign up, calculate your commission, get your delivery tags, your receipts. It makes us invest more in the platform,” she said.

    In a move toward profitability, Shopee has since raised commission to 18% – as much as twice marketplaces can charge in some Southeast Asian countries, indicating Latin America’s potential profit margins. Carvalho continues to use Shopee, though she prefers MercadoLibre for its “unbeatable” delivery.

    To further improve profitability, Goldman Sachs analysts said Shopee could start selling higher-ticket items, as it has in Southeast Asia. Momentum Works’ Li expects Shopee to add financial services to its Brazil app as it has in Indonesia.

    “I wouldn’t be surprised,” if they reached number one, said Li, “Given what they have done in Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, Thailand.”

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  • Shopee parent Sea to scale up digital financial services as revenues double

    Shopee parent Sea to scale up digital financial services as revenues double

    Singaporean technology group Sea – parent of e-commerce marketplace Shopee – more than doubled its revenues in 2021 thanks to growth in e-commerce and entertainment.

    Chairman Forrest Li said today the firm would now scale up its fintech offerings in Southeast Asia.

    “Digital financial services in our region are at early stages and we expect use cases to grow,” the executive told an investor call.

    Sea, which claimed US$3.4 billion in payments for its mobile wallet for the first quarter of 2021, won a digital banking license in Singapore in December and purchased last year Indonesian lender Bank BKE ( Bank Kesejahteraan Ekonomi) to turn into a digital bank.

    The New York-listed firm announced on Tuesday it had booked revenue of $1.8 billion for the first quarter of 2021, up 147 percent year on year.

    Its net loss widened from $281 million to $422 million as the company more than doubled sales and marketing expenses.

    Sea’s e-commerce arm Shopee brought in $922 million in revenue, up 250 percent year on year, while its gaming arm Garena raked in $781 million in revenue, up 111 percent.

    Li told reporters that Shopee was seeing growth in Brazil due to a nascent regional expansion. Reuters reported earlier in 2021 that the firm was launching in Mexico and was eying a possible wider expansion in Latin America.

    Analysts said they believe the jump in marketing costs was also due to Shopee’s launch of a food delivery arm segment in Indonesia this year, where it now competes with ride-hailers Grab and Gojek.

    The group has seen meteoric growth on the stock markets during the coronavirus pandemic as shoppers turned to the internet, with its market cap now at $113 billion.

    But it is expected to face increased competition in Southeast Asia.

    Indonesian ride-hailing and payments firm Gojek and e-commerce leader Tokopedia announced on Monday they are merging to create a multi-billion dollar tech company called GoTo in the country’s largest-ever deal.

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  • Shopee’s rise sends rivals scrambling in Southeast Asian internet battle

    Shopee’s rise sends rivals scrambling in Southeast Asian internet battle

    In front of an open-air Jakarta restaurant, delivery drivers clad in the orange colours of Southeast Asia tech group Sea Ltd wait for orders next to the green-jacketed riders of market leaders Gojek and Grab, in what has become the latest battleground for tech supremacy in Southeast Asia.

    The humble noodles eatery signed up for Sea’s nascent ShopeeFood service a month ago, but “immediately, there were orders everyday,” said manager M.A Rasyid.

    Riding on the success of a cash-generating gaming business, U.S.-listed Sea has invested heavily in its Shopee e-commerce brand and successfully taken on Alibaba’s Lazada and other rivals in recent years. Its share price has risen five-fold over the past year, giving Singapore-based Sea a market value of $111 billion.

    Now it is muscling into food delivery and financial services in Indonesia, the world’s fourth-most-populous country, posing a new threat to regional rivals including ride-hailing and delivery unicorns Grab and GoJek.

    At stake is a slice of the more than 400 million internet users in Southeast Asia’s digital economy, which is estimated to triple to $309 billion by 2025, according to a study by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company.

    Tech behemoths, including Tencent, a major investor in Sea, Alibaba, Google and Softbank Group Corp, are big backers of regional champions.

    Sources say Sea’s aggressive expansion is one driver of merger discussions between Gojek and e-commerce platform Tokopedia. The Indonesian firms aim to create an $18 billion powerhouse to fight off Sea and regional giant Grab.

    Meanwhile, Grab and others, including travel app Traveloka and Indonesian e-commerce unicorn Bukalapak, are rushing for public listings, hoping to ride the coattails of Sea’s stock rally while defending their turf, according to Reuters interviews with over a dozen people.

    “Sea is like Thanos, massive and powerful, and able to take down half of the world, or in this case half the startups,” Willson Cuaca, co-founder of East Ventures and an early backer of Tokopedia, joked as he compared Sea to the powerful villain in the Marvel film series.

    “Like the Avengers, companies need to band together if they want to ensure their survival and to win the war.”

    Sea’s stock rally reflects a scarcity of options for investors seeking exposure to the booming Southeast Asia internet sector. It went public in 2017 and has raised some $7 billion in share and debt sales, with early investor Tencent now holding a stake of about 20%.

    That investor appetite, combined with a need to raise cash to match Sea’s muscle, is forcing rivals to seek listings as quickly as they can, bankers and executives familiar with the matter say.

    Sources say the Gojek-Tokopedia merger, which is likely to be finalised within weeks, will be followed by a Jakarta listing in the second half of 2021, then a mega IPO in the United States targeted for 2022.

    Grab and Traveloka, for their part, aim to accelerate the process by merging with special purpose acquisition companies, sources said. Bukalapak is planning the same, after a 2021 Jakarta IPO.

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  • Singapore’s Shopee to Launch Digital Bank in Indonesia

    Singapore’s Shopee to Launch Digital Bank in Indonesia

    Shopee, the e-commerce arm of Singapore’s Sea Group, is planning on transforming Indonesian lender Bank Kesejahteraan Ekonomi (Bank BKE) into a digital bank, according to a «Reuters» report on Thursday.

    An Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority (OJK) official said that Shopee has yet to make an official application with the banking regulators, but is «currently preparing the infrastructure» for the transformation.

    The bank, which began operations in 1992, was acquired by Shopee in January from the Jakarta-based lender’s existing shareholders Danadipa Artha Indonesia and Koin Investama Nusantara through its subsidiary Tubro Cash Hong Kong.

    Indonesia is in the midst of preparing regulations for new digital banks, which is expected to be released in mid-2021. A digital lender like Bank BKE would be expected to prepare 3 trillion rupiah ($213.64 million) in capital, the official said.

    Sea – Southeast Asia’s most valuable startup – raised close to $3 billion in a stock offering in December 2020. The company was also one of two to be awarded a license to operate a full digital bank in Singapore.

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  • Shopee scales up Brazil operations, eyes Latam potential – sources

    Shopee scales up Brazil operations, eyes Latam potential – sources

    Shopee, the e-commerce arm of Southeast Asia’s SEA Ltd, is scaling up its operations in Brazil and evaluating the long-term potential of Latin American markets, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

    Shopee, the largest e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia according to market researchers, launched a small presence in Brazil in late 2019 as a pilot initiative of its cross-border team.

    The company is now growing its presence and moving executives from Southeast Asia to Brazil said the sources who were briefed on the matter but declined to be identified as they were not authorized to speak to media.

    The Singapore-headquartered technology group’s shares surged more than 400% in 2020, taking its market capitalization to $120 billion. It raised close to $3 billion in a stock offering last month.

    On Linkedin, Shopee is currently recruiting for over three dozen positions in Brazil. Pine Kyaw, formerly country managing director for Shopee’s high-growth Vietnam unit, is listed on the job platform as having become Shopee Brazil country head. Kyaw could not be reached for comment.

    SEA Chief Corporate Office Yanjun Wang told an investor call in November that Shopee Brazil, while cross-border driven, was now being used by local sellers.

  • Olive Young eyeing Southeast Asia through Shopee

    Olive Young eyeing Southeast Asia through Shopee

    CJ Olive Young, the country’s largest health and beauty product store, opened an online shop on Southeast Asia’s biggest e-commerce platform Shopee, Tuesday, as part of its global expansion plans.

    “From now on, Olive Young will actively seize opportunities in the global market to grow and lead the globalization of Korean cosmetics,” a CJ Olive Young official said.

    Shopee is a subsidiary of Sea Group, which sells various products from daily necessities to cosmetics and electronic goods online. It is referred to as the Amazon of Southeast Asia, as it focuses on Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia. Last year, the number of accumulated mobile application downloads of the Shopee platform surpassed 200 million.

    In 2020, Olive Young also signed a memorandum of understanding with Dairy Farm to launch several of its products in Guardian stores, a drug store chain in the region.

    The health and beauty product store is entering foreign markets through local retailers because it wants to minimize risks and analyze the markets first.

    CJ Olive Young has started selling 300 items from its six house brands on Shopee ― Wake Make, Colorgram, Round Around, Botanic Heal Boh, Bring Green and Filli Milli ― which are good value local brands sold for reasonable prices that are popular among international customers.

    The health and beauty product stores’ items will be available in Indonesia and Malaysia first. This is because they have a high proportion of young people who are interested in K-beauty and mobile shopping. It wants to introduce Korean products as well as improve the firm’s brand awareness in the two countries.

    CJ Olive Young sold some of its shares to the domestic firm Glenwood Private Equity last month. After the stock purchase agreement, the private equity fund became the second-largest shareholder with 24 percent interest.

    During the purchase, Glenwood valued Olive Young at 1.8 trillion won. The health and beauty product store plans to go public on the Korean bourse next year and raising its corporate value is important as it will have to pay back money to strategic investors after listing.

    Olive Young is already successful with its bricks-and-mortar business here, which has a nearly 70 percent market share. However, its online business is a whole other story. Online retail giants Coupang and eBay Korea have established gigantic sales platforms that give no reason for customers to go only to Olive Young’s online mall.

    For this reason, Olive Young decided to eye the Indonesian and Malaysian markets. Although sales in the two countries may not produce good profits at first, it has to look beyond the domestic online market that is already too competitive.

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  • Shopee celebrates record-breaking 12.12 Birthday Sale

    Shopee celebrates record-breaking 12.12 Birthday Sale

    Shopee, the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan, wraps up the year-end shopping season with a record-breaking 12.12 Birthday Sale. On 12 December, 12 million items were sold in the first 24 minutes and at its peak, 1 million items were bought in a single minute.

    Terence Pang, Chief Operating Officer at Shopee said “We are humbled to end the year on a high note with a groundbreaking 12.12 Birthday Sale. Given the unprecedented year that 2020 has been, we wanted our fifth birthday to be a special day not just for Shopee but for the people we serve. E-commerce has become of increasing importance in our lives and has evolved beyond a platform to access basic needs to one that connects people and businesses. We are glad to have been able to celebrate the past five years with our users, sellers and brand partners and are truly excited for what is to come.”

    Shopee ushered in the festive season with endless fun and greater convenience

    Users joined Shopee every day for four weeks of fun and entertainment leading to 12 December, where they shopped from over 2 billion products. Consumers spent more time on Shopee’s in-app games and features, which offered greater rewards and value.

    • 450 million views were recorded on Shopee Live across the entire 12.12
    • Shopee’s in-app games were played a record of 2.7 billion times
    • Two of Shopee’s newest games, Shopee Bubble and Shopee Candy were a big hit, with a total of 28 million hours played

    The surge in shopping activity was also met with increasing adoption of digital payments. In particular, users enjoyed the convenience of Shopee’s integrated mobile wallet AirPay, with orders paid via the mobile wallet surging 18 times from an average day.

    12.12 Birthday Sale highlights in Thailand

    In Thailand, users enjoyed a constant stream of attractive deals on 12 December, supported by Shopee’s robust ecosystem.

    Thais took this chance to fulfil all their essential and entertainment needs with Home & Living, Beauty & Personal Care and Mobile & Gadgets emerging as the best-selling product categories.

    • Home & Living: Consumers took the time to revitalise their homes on 12 December, with more than 100,000 3D Wallpapers sold.
    • Beauty & Personal Care: Skincare was a big priority as people geared up for the festive season and the new year with 550,000 skincare products sold on 12 December.
    • Mobile & Gadgets: There was strong demand for new phones, gadgets, and electronics accessories. In particular, 400,000 smartphone accessories were sold on 12 December
    • Top Keyword search: On 12 December, the top keywords searched were “iPhone case” and “New Year Gift”, as Thais looked to treat themselves and their loved ones ahead of the new year.
    • Strong demand in the major cities: Shopping activity was highest in Bangkok on 12 December. At its peak, 500,000 items were sold in an hour.

    Powered by the surge in shopping activity, sales peaked for businesses on Shopee. A top electronics retailer recorded THB 7 million in sales per hour on 12 December.

     

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