Alibaba’s ‘cave door’ is wide open with Lazada as its ‘key’.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has disclosed its trading business objectives for its Southeast Asian market through Lazada.
The Chinese e-commerce giant aims to reach US $ 100 billion or RM421.05 billion in gross value of goods (GMV) through the Lazada platform which is expected to provide additional services to more than 300 million users.
Alibaba took over Lazada in 2016 and it is the Chinese company’s main e-commerce business in the Southeast Asian market.
It has been an important asset for Alibaba since Beijing launched efforts to curb the influence of internet giants in the country such as Alibaba and Tencent Holding to boost their international business.
GMV Lazada has grown by approximately US $ 21 billion over the past 12 months with its active users 1.8 times to 130 million from March 2020 to September.
So far Lazada is the 3rd largest online retailer in GMV’s emerging market behind Mercado Libre but ahead of South Korea’s Coupang Inc and India’s Flipkart.
Meanwhile, Lazada, Shopee and internet giant partners such as Grab Holdings Ltd and GoTo are experiencing an increase in Southeast Asian online commerce which according to Alibaba is growing about 27% annually on average.
It is expected that the Southeast Asian internet economy will double by US $ 363 billion by 2025.
