KUCHING: Mobile applications today play a vital role in the development of e-commerce. According to a report by Google and Temasek, there are more than 350 million internet users in Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam).
More importantly, more than 90 per cent of Southeast Asians connects to the internet primarily through mobile devices. This figure is expected to rise as smartphones become more accessible and the rapid improvements of faster and more reliable mobile telecommunication services.
In addition to this, the same report by Google & Temasek stated that the internet economy will rapidly grow to become a US$240 billion industry with e-commerce as a key driving force and is estimated to garner as much as US$102 billion by the year 2025.
As e-commerce companies today are racing to realise the mobile-first potential, we conducted a study to ascertain the leading e-commerce shopping applications of today. iPrice Group partnered with App Annie Intelligence, an app market data, and insights company to identify which e-commerce mobile shopping applications were most actively used in the first quarter of 2019 (1Q19).
The e-commerce shopping apps were ranked via the average monthly active users (MAU) recorded in 1Q19. Utilising MAU, App Annie Intelligence aggregated and ranked applications for six key markets in Southeast Asia (SEA) namely, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Lazada, Shopee, Tokopedia leading the way
Lazada’s mobile shopping application garnered the highest average MAU in the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore. The Alibaba-backed e-commerce was amongst the top apps as well in Vietnam and Indonesia, ranking second and fourth respectively.
In the past year, Lazada has put significant focus in the development of its application to engage tech-savvy consumers and serving their constantly evolving habits. Among the many new features introduced was an in-app livestreaming function and Image Search feature where Lazada claims that 500,000 customers utilise daily to find some 20 million products, and the ‘Shake It’ in-app game.
Its closest competitor in the region would be Shopee, ranking highest in Vietnam, second place in Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand, and third place in Singapore. Also aware of the importance of mobile apps in the region, Shopee in the past year prioritised a ‘hyper-localised’ user experience approach by having a different app for each country.
This was part of their strategy to focus on taking a highly localised approach to each market. This has been an effective strategy as Shopee remains one of the youngest players amongst the top apps, quickly rising through the ranks since its founding in 2015.
Another prominent competitor was Tokopedia who ranks highest in average MAU in Indonesia. Tokopedia remains a prominent player as the company currently holds the biggest market share in SEA’s largest country in terms of population. Last year, Tokopedia was the third most visited e-commerce platform in SEA although it was only available in a single country, with an average 125 million visitors in 2018.
Chinese, American-based e-commerce apps highly relevant in region
Across the six countries analysed, Chinese and American e-commerce mobile apps remained popular and were actively used in the region with apps such as AliExpress, Amazon, eBay, TaoBao, and Alibaba.com.
Chinese e-commerce apps such as TaoBao performed well in countries where there were more consumers proficient in the Chinese language (Mandarin). This was evident in countries such as Singapore and Malaysia where the app ranked fourth and third respectively. TaoBao is available primarily in the Chinese language and provides delivery services to SEA as well.
AliExpress, on the other hand was optimised for non-Chinese proficient consumers and was actively used in Thailand (third place), Philippines (fifth place), Malaysia (fifth place), Vietnam (sixth place), and Indonesia (eighth place).
American-based e-commerce application remains highly relevant for Southeast Asians as well. Amazon was actively used in the Philippines as compared to Alibaba Group’s applications, ranking fourth above AliExpress (fifth place) and Alibaba.com (ninth place).
In SEA, Amazon officially launched its services in Singapore in 2017 with Amazon Prime Now and currently ranks ninth place in the list of monthly actively used mobile shopping apps in the city-state. In other countries, Amazon remains as a prominent e-commerce app in Thailand and Vietnam, ranking fifth and seventh place respectively.
Local e-commerce performing well in its home country
In SEA, Tokopedia was the only e-commerce mobile application which was most actively used in its home country. Recently, the Indonesian e-commerce recently received US$1 billion from existing investors, making it the most valuable startup in the country.
According to Bloomberg, William Tanuwijaya, the co-founder of Tokopedia capitalised on the country’s rapid adoption of smartphones and increasing comfort in shopping online. As such, Tokopedia leads in the mobile shopping sector as well as on desktop with the most visitors in its home country Indonesia.
Other e-commerce apps which performed well in its home-country were Qoo10 (second place in Singapore), Tiki (third place in Vietnam), and 11street (fourth place in Malaysia).
Vital findings on the most visited e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia for 1Q19
Although mobile applications are an important aspect of e-commerce, e-commerce websites remain relevant to consumers as well. A study on the State of E-commerce in Southeast Asia noted that consumers were more likely to conduct purchases via desktops as compared to mobile.
Key findings on the most visited e-commerce platforms on desktop and mobile web:
Shopee takes the reign as the most visited e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia (six countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore) in 1Q19 with a total average of 184.8 million visitors.
Lazada saw a -12 per cent decline in total average visits when compared to the previous quarter, obtaining 179.7 million visitors in 1Q19 (six countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore.
Tokopedia (ID), Bukalapak (ID), and Tiki (VN) were the third, fourth and fifth most visited e-commerce platforms in Southeast Asia although they were only available in a single market.
Despite a 12 per cent decline in its total average visits, Lazada remains as the most visited e-commerce platform in the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore.
Apart from Indonesia and Vietnam, other locally based e-commerce platforms that performed well were Lelong (third in Malaysia), Argomall (fourth in Philippines), Qoo10 (first in Singapore), and Chilindo (third in Thailand).
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.
