Alibaba (BABA) aims to grow Lazada’s sales to $100bn
09:06, 17 December 2021
Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba aims to grow the total sales of its Southeast Asian marketplace Lazada fivefold to $100bn by catering to the region’s 300 million customers.
In a presentation by Lazada Group CEO Chun Li during Alibaba’s investor conference this week, the firm outlined its long-term vision.
The plans to ramp up its presence in Southeast Asia comes amid increasing regulatory scrutiny of technology firms in China, Alibaba’s home market.
Growing Southeast Asian market
If Alibaba achieves the goal with Lazada it will corner well over a third of the Southeast Asian e-commerce market, where sales are expected to grow to $260bn by 2025, according to Alibaba.
According to a recent report by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Co, Southeast Asia’s digital economy is set to reach $1trn by 2030, driven by the growth in the e-commerce sector.
The report said the e-commerce sector in Southeast Asia is expected to reach $120bn in sales by the end of 2021, and by 2025 sales are set to reach $234bn.
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Much smaller than competitors
Singapore-based Lazada has grown its marketplace sales to $21bn as of September 2021 by increasing its active consumer base by 1.8 times to 130 million between March 2020 and September 2021.
Alibaba’s data showed that it remains far behind Singapore-based rival Sea’s Shopee, which is the sixth-largest e-commerce platform by sales in the world. Lazada, on the other hand, is the 12th largest e-commerce platform by global sales.
Read more: Digital economy in Southeast Asia to reach Read more: Digital economy in Southeast Asia to reach $1trn by 2030trn by 2030
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