Connect with us

AFP

TikTok to spend billions in SE Asia as e-commerce move pays off

TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew announced plans to invest billions in Southeast Asia, riding on the success of the company’s e-commerce branch, TikTok Shop. In just a year,

TikTok Shop has made significant market share gains in the region, amassing a gross merchandise value of $4.4 billion in 2022 from $600,000 in 2021.

The growth has been attributed to the app’s captive audience and aggressive expansion in markets with large TikTok user bases.

Published

1 year ago

on

TikTok’s chief executive said Thursday the company would pour billions of dollars into Southeast Asia in the coming years, as a report showed its nascent venture into online shopping is paying off.

The popular video-sharing app’s e-commerce affiliate has gained a substantial market share in the region just a year after its launch.

“We’re going to invest billions of dollars in Indonesia and Southeast Asia over the next few years,” Shou Zi Chew told a forum in Indonesian capital Jakarta.

“From a humble team of about 100 people, we now have nearly 8,000 employees in Southeast Asia.”

Chew said 125 million Indonesians comprised the majority of the app’s 325 million Southeast Asian users every month and more than two million sell their wares on TikTok Shop in Indonesia, the region’s biggest economy and most populous nation.

Users sell a range of tech, fashion, homemade products and other goods on the platform.

Chew’s comments came as Singapore-based consultancy Momentum Works released a report Thursday detailing how TikTok Shop capitalised on legions of users to expand its business in 2022 after testing the waters in Indonesia a year earlier.

While it lagged older rivals Shopee and Lazada, TikTok Shop posted the fastest growth rate, expanding its gross merchandise value (GMV) – the total value of goods sold, including cancelled, returned and refunded orders – sevenfold to US$4.4 billion last year from just US$600,000 in 2021.

“You can think of it as TikTok already having a captive audience coming onboard for entertainment trying different means to convert them and their attention into purchase and GMV,” Weihan Chen, head of insights at Momentum Works, told AFP.

From Indonesia, TikTok Shop “aggressively expanded into five additional Southeast Asian markets, many of which boasted large populations of TikTok users” and invested to improve its e-commerce capabilities, Chen added.

TikTok is owned by Chinese technology giant ByteDance.

‘Game changer’

Overall, the GMV of the region’s nine top e-commerce platforms was valued at almost US$100 billion in 2022, up 14 per cent on-year, led by Singapore-based Shopee and Lazada, a subsidiary of China’s Alibaba Group.

Shopee, a unit of Singapore’s Sea Ltd, accounted for US$47.9 billion of that, a 13 per cent increase, the report said.

Lazada was at a distant second with US$20.1 billion, down from US$21 billion in 2021.

Indonesia remains Southeast Asia’s largest e-commerce market, accounting for 52 per cent of the region’s total GMV.

The return of offline shopping after Covid-19 restrictions were lifted led to a moderation in e-commerce sales, but it is expected to continue growing, the report said.

It noted that the region may benefit from Chinese brands and manufacturing firms expanding into other countries as they reduce reliance on the US market and escape rising competition at home.

“That might be a real game changer for Southeast Asia’s e-commerce landscape, which has for a long time suffered from a lack of variety of goods,” it said.

— AFP

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
4 Comments
Subscribe
Notify of
4 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

AFP

Singapore hangs 14th drug convict since last year

Singapore executed Mohd Aziz bin Hussain, convicted of drug trafficking, amid a resumption of executions in 2022. Another woman prisoner, Saridewi Djamani, faces execution.

Amnesty International urged Singapore to halt the executions, questioning the deterrent effect of the death penalty.

Published

1 year ago

on

26 July 2023

By

SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE — Singapore on Wednesday hanged a local man convicted of drug trafficking, officials said, two days before the scheduled execution of the first woman prisoner in the city-state in nearly 20 years.

Mohd Aziz bin Hussain, convicted and sentenced to death in 2017 for trafficking “not less than 49.98 grams” (1.76 ounces) of heroin, was executed at Changi Prison, the Central Narcotics Bureau said in a statement.

The 57-year-old was the 14th convict sent to the gallows since the government resumed executions in March 2022 after a two-year pause during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hussain’s previous appeals against his conviction and sentence had been dismissed, and a petition for presidential clemency was also denied.

A woman drug convict, 45-year-old Saridewi Djamani, is scheduled to be hanged on Friday, according to the local rights group Transformative Justice Collective (TJC).

She was sentenced to death in 2018 for trafficking around 30 grams of heroin.

If carried out, Djamani would be the first woman executed in Singapore since 2004, when 36-year-old hairdresser Yen May Woen was hanged for drug trafficking, according to TJC activist Kokila Annamalai.

Singapore has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws — trafficking more than 500 grams of cannabis or over 15 grams of heroin can result in the death penalty.

Rights watchdog Amnesty International on Tuesday urged Singapore to halt the executions, saying there was no evidence the death penalty acted as a deterrent to crime.

“It is unconscionable that authorities in Singapore continue to cruelly pursue more executions in the name of drug control,” Amnesty death penalty expert Chiara Sangiorgio said in a statement.

Singapore, however, insists that the death penalty has helped make it one of Asia’s safest countries.

Among those hanged since last year was Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam, whose execution sparked a global outcry, including from the United Nations and British tycoon Richard Branson, because he was deemed to have a mental disability.

— AFP

Continue Reading

AFP

Singapore to execute first woman in nearly 20 years: rights groups

Singapore set to execute two drug convicts, including first woman in 20 years, despite rights groups’ calls to stop.

Published

1 year ago

on

25 July 2023

By

SINGAPORE, SINGAPORE — Singapore is set to hang two drug convicts this week, including the first woman to be sent to the gallows in nearly 20 years, rights groups said Tuesday, while urging the executions be halted.

Local rights organisation Transformative Justice Collective (TJC) said a 56-year-old man convicted of trafficking 50 grams (1.76 ounces) of heroin is scheduled to be hanged on Wednesday at the Southeast Asian city-state’s Changi Prison.

A 45-year-old woman convict who TJC identified as Saridewi Djamani is also set to be sent to the gallows on Friday. She was sentenced to death in 2018 for trafficking around 30 grams of heroin.

If carried out, she would be the first woman to be executed in Singapore since 2004 when 36-year-old hairdresser Yen May Woen was hanged for drug trafficking, said TJC activist Kokila Annamalai.

TJC said the two prisoners are Singaporeans and their families have received notices setting the dates of their executions.

Prison officials have not answered emailed questions from AFP seeking confirmation.

Singapore imposes the death penalty for certain crimes, including murder and some forms of kidnapping.

It also has some of the world’s toughest anti-drug laws: trafficking more than 500 grams of cannabis and 15 grams of heroin can result in the death penalty.

At least 13 people have been hanged so far since the government resumed executions following a two-year hiatus in place during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Rights watchdog Amnesty International on Tuesday urged Singapore to halt the impending executions.

“It is unconscionable that authorities in Singapore continue to cruelly pursue more executions in the name of drug control,” Amnesty’s death penalty expert Chiara Sangiorgio said in a statement.

“There is no evidence that the death penalty has a unique deterrent effect or that it has any impact on the use and availability of drugs.

“As countries around the world do away with the death penalty and embrace drug policy reform, Singapore’s authorities are doing neither,” Sangiorgio added.

Singapore insists that the death penalty is an effective crime deterrent.

— AFP

Continue Reading

Trending