In the last quarter of 2018 (4Q18), we saw fierce competition in the e-commerce arena.
E-commerce business of all sizes undertook various initiatives to promote online sales periods such as the Singles’ Day Sale, 12.12 Sales, Black Friday, and various year-end sales.
This makes the final quarter the most active period for e-commerce and solidifies this period as the most important quarter of the year for most online businesses in Southeast Asia and Malaysia.
To find out who were the most successful e-commerce platforms in this period, we analysed online traffic, mobile app rankings, social media followers and number of employees for the months of October, November and December 2018. Here are the most interesting findings from our study.
Companies with the highest average monthly visits on desktop and mobile web in Southeast Asia were Lazada (183.4 million visits), Tokopedia (153.6 million visits) and Shopee (147.6 million visits). The average monthly visit reached by Tokopedia is impressive compared to the average monthly visits from Lazada and Shopee.
The Most Visited E-Commerce Platform in Malaysia for 4Q18
In a similar trend, Lazada, Shopee, and 11street remain as Malaysia’s three most visited e-commerce platforms with 26.2 million, 20.2 million and 8.4 million online visits respectively.
The most visited Malaysian-based platforms are Lelong with 4.5 million visitors, followed by GoShop at 777,168 visitors and Hermo at 625,419 visitors.
From a Southeast Asian perspective, Lazada had the highest web traffic in four of the six countries where it operates.
Shopee, on the other hand leads in terms of online visits in Indonesia and Vietnam.
These two countries are among the most important e-commerce markets in the region, maintaining Shopee as a formidable opponent to Lazada.
Total Average Visitors from Desktop and Mobile Web
Country Highlight: Indonesia
In Indonesia, Tokopedia, Bukalapak, Shopee, and Lazada continue to grow their average traffic on desktop and mobile web.
The number 1 player in terms of total visits is Tokopedia and increased 9.3 per cent on average visits in 4Q18 (168 million monthly web visits).
Bukalapak in 2nd place, grew 20.9 per cent it’s average visitors to 116 million monthly web visits. In 3rd and 4th place was Shopee and Lazada which increased its average visits by 74 per cent and 60.1 per cent respectively.
Although only available in a single market, e-commerce businesses such as Tokopedia and Bukalapak remains extremely impressive in the region as it is among the most visited e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia.
Furthermore, there are other e-commerce players that continue to attract attention at the regional level besides Lazada, Tokopedia, Shopee, and Bukalapak. Among them are Blibli (Indonesia) with 43 million monthly web visits, Tiki (Vietnam) with 35.9 million monthly web visits and Th? Gi?i Di Ð?ng (Vietnam) with 29.4 million monthly web visits.
In addition to the above-mentioned e-commerce companies, here are other noteworthy e-commerce companies which performed well in the final quarter of 2018:
Malaysia: 11street ranked 3rd with an average of 8.2 million monthly web visits
Philippines: Zalora ranked 3rd with an average of 2.1 million monthly web visits
Thailand: Chilindo ranked 3rd with an average of 4.3 million monthly web visits
Singapore: Qoo10 at 1st with an average of 9.9 million monthly web visits.
The Highest-Ranking E-Commerce Mobile Applications
Today, more than 74 per cent of online traffic received by e-commerce platforms derived from mobile devices.
Leading in the mobile app arena is Shopee ranking number one (in the shopping category) on average in Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines on AppStore iOS and Google PlayStore. Competition between shopping app Lazada and Shopee remains tight in Singapore and Thailand.
All data on the total visits on desktop and mobile web in this study were taken from global traffic figures from the respective regional sites. Insights based on SimilarWeb data.
Jeremy Chew is the senior content marketer for iPrice group, the fastest growing product meta-search platform in Southeast Asia. For further information, please visit https://iprice.my.