E-commerce in the Southeast Asia region is expected to grow tremendously in the following years. In the coming months, this column will occasionally explore the e-commerce market in other vital regions in Southeast Asia. For this week’s column, we shall see who are the top e-commerce companies in our neighbouring country, Singapore.
Lazada, Shopee top in their class
According to App Annie Intelligence, Lazada is the most actively used mobile app in Singapore in the second quarter of 2019 (2Q19). To date, the Alibaba-backed e-commerce company is also the most actively used app in the first half of the year as Lazada ranked first in MAU in the previous quarter as well.
From the regional point of view, Lazada’s mobile app is the second-highest most actively used shopping app and is the 2nd most downloaded e-commerce shopping app in 2Q19.
While in terms of total visits, Lazada is the second-highest most visited e-commerce website, garnering an average of 174 million visitors (desktop & mobile web) in the same period. This is also vital as Lazada’s headquarters are also located in Singapore, indicating a good lead in its local e-commerce market.
Meanwhile, Shopee was the most downloaded mobile e-commerce shopping application in Singapore in 2Q19.
The e-commerce company also saw improvements on its website as Shopee saw an increase in traffic by 11 per cent when compared to the previous quarter, garnering more than 2.8 million average visitors in 2Q19 in Singapore alone.
In Southeast Asia, the Singapore-based e-commerce company ranked first as the most actively used mobile e-commerce app, garnering the highest number of total odwnloads. In terms of the number of total visits, Shopee is also the most visited e-commerce platform, recorded an average of 200 million visitors on its website.
The e-commerce backed by South East Asia has been growing rapidly not just in Singapore but across Southeast Asia as well. This is evident as we recently saw big marketing investments through advertisements such as the recent commercials with Christiano Ronaldo and the recent 9.9 sales event.
Qoo10 remains best Singapore-focused e-commerce platform
This Singapore-focused e-commerce company remains a strong competitor as one of the top three most actively used app.
Qoo10 recorded the second-highest monthly active users, although it only ranked the third most downloaded app – combined on both iOS and Google Play. Qoo10 performed consistently against the industry’s unicorns since 1Q19 and remains the second most actively used app in Singapore for 1H19.
The e-commerce company obtained more than 7.1 million average visitors
Additionally, Qoo10 was in a further push of its growth by deepening its localisation strategy to improve consumer’s affinity towards the e-commerce platform.
Commenting on the localisation strategy of Qoo10, Sarah Cheah, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore’s Business School said, “They (Qoo10) started off as a local player, they had a certain advantage in familiarity with local consumers and preferences.”
What does this mean for Malaysia?
The good performance of local players in Singapore shows that there is potential for local-e-commerce companies to succeed in the local market despite big competition from companies with deeper pockets.
Localisation strategies are vital in order to match the performance of international players. This is also apparent in other countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia where local e-commerce players (such as Tokopedia or Sendo) were able to leverage on their national identity.
Similarly, Malaysia has been a breeding ground for locally-based e-commerce platforms such as Lelong, GoShop, Hermo, Fashion Valet and others.
In an article by SCMP on Qoo10’s success, it was highlighted that “Localisation is the secret to Qoo10’s success, according to Trevor Yu, an associate professor at Nanyang Business School.
“They may be backed by a multinational conglomerate like eBay, but they make a concerted effort to customise their customer experience to fit local tastes and online buying habits.”
Jeremy Chew is the head of content marketing for iPrice group, the fastest growing product meta-search platform in Southeast Asia. For further information, please visit https://iprice.my.