Expanding foreign e-commerce firms outperform Vietnamese rivals

Foreign-invested firms in the Vietnamese e-commerce sector have taken control of the market, placing heavy pressure on their homegrown competitors.

TikTok Shop is a rising rival against major e-commerce players such as Shopee and Lazada in Southeast Asia as a whole.

TikTok announced in Jakarta on June 15 it would invest billions of dollars in Southeast Asia, including Vietnam, over the next few years as it doubles down on the region amid intensifying global scrutiny over its data security.

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, who made the announcement, said it would invest in training, advertising and supporting small vendors looking to join its e-commerce platform TikTok Shop. He did not provide a detailed breakdown of the spending plan.

In the same month, the "Ecommerce in Southeast Asia 2023" report by Singapore-based market researcher Momentum Works estimated that Vietnam's e-commerce gross merchandise volume (GMV) reached $9 billion in 2022. Shopee of Singapore-based group SEA had the largest share of 63%, followed by Lazada, the Southeast Asian arm of Chinese giant Alibaba, with 23%. Other major players in Vietnam were Tiki.vn, Tiktok Shop, and Sendo with 6%, 4%, and 4%, respectively.

In 2022, TikTok Shop expanded to six Southeast Asian countries - Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand. TikTok Shop is the e-commerce marketplace of short video app TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance. The shopping app enables merchants, brands and creators to showcase and sell their goods to users.

Present in Vietnam since last April, Tiktok Shop has proven itself a formidable player in this e-commerce market. It ranked third among the most popular e-commerce platforms in 2022, according to the E-Commerce Industry Rankings in 2022 report by Reputa, a Vietnamese social media tracker.

TikTok Shop’s GMV skyrocketed more than four times to $4.4 billion in Southeast Asia in 2022, according to internal data obtained by tech media outlet The Information. TikTok Shop is reportedly aiming for a GMV target of $12 billion by 2023, according to news services firm caixinglobal.com.

Amid TikTok Shop’s regional expansion, Tran Ngoc Thai Son, CEO and founder of Vietnamese player Tiki, has reportedly filed a letter of resignation to the company’s board of directors.

Tiki reported this January a net loss of $116.25 million in the fiscal year that finished on March 31, 2022. This was based on regulatory filings for Singapore-based Tiki Global Pte. Ltd., which was formed in May 2021 and currently owns a more than 90% stake in the Vietnam platform.

Tiki was founded in 2010 in Vietnam by Son with around $5,000. The software engineer, who holds a master’s degree (University of New South Wales, Australia), wrote the code himself, purchased about 100 English books from Amazon, and then delivered them on his motorbike in HCMC, Vietnam’s southern economic hub.

Tiki in late 2021 secured $258 million in a series E fundraising led by American financial group AIA. Shinhan Financial Group announced in May 2022 that it had acquired 10% of the e-commerce platform for an undisclosed amount in a fresh move to expand outside financial services. According to regulatory filings for Tiki Global, the Shinhan investment was around $90 million.

Other investors in Tiki include Japan’s Sumitomo Corp., Taiwan Mobile (Taiwan’s second-largest telecom operator), UBS AG, Korean investment fund Mirae Asset, AppWorks, and STIC Investments.

While Tiki is struggling against losses, Alibaba-backed units keep expanding in Vietnam.

This March, Lazada Vietnam inaugurated a commodity sorting center called Lazada Logistics Park in the southern province of Binh Duong. The two-hectare facility has a capacity of one million parcels per day. Lazada said its new sorting center is equipped with modern technologies such as AI and machine learning, and 99% of the sorting lines are automated.

In the same month, Cainiao Vietnam, a subsidiary of Cainiao Network, the logistics arm of Alibaba Group, announced the signing of an MoU with Sagawa Vietnam to promote stronger collaboration in Vietnam’s logistics sector.

Located at the Cainiao P.A.T. Logistics Park and Cainiao Dong Nai Smart Logistics Park (both in Dong Nai province bordering HCMC), the premium warehouse space offers a strategic geographical advantage for business tenants as both parks boast multiple access points that link directly to HCMC, Long Thanh International Airport (under construction), and major seaports such as Cat Lai in HCMC and the Cai Mep-Thi Vai cluster in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province.

Procter & Gamble (listed on the New York Stock Exchange as PG), a leading fast-moving consumer goods company, launched this June a new haircare microsite called HairDNA exclusively on Lazada in Southeast Asia, where it has a presence in Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand.

P&G kick-started its HairDNA microsite in Indonesia in June, while plans for the other markets are in the pipeline.