Lazada and Shopee battle for pole position in Malaysia’s e-commerce landscape

Lazada and Shopee battle for pole position in Malaysia’s e-commerce landscape

Malaysia’s top 50 e-commerce companies have provided more than 1,600 jobs in the country

  • Lazada maintains the lead as the most visited e-commerce site on the desktop.

  • Shopee solidifies lead as the highest ranked mobile shopping app since December 2017.

  • When compared to previous quarters, all merchants saw a big increase in traffic in Q4 2017.

  • As of Q1 2018, Malaysia’s top 50 e-commerce companies have provided more than 1,600 jobs.

  • Lelong, Hermo & GoShop remains as the three most visited Malaysian-based eCommerce.

In February 2018, Malaysia’s Minister of International Trade and Industry indicated that e-commerce accounted for 6.1 per cent of the country’s GDP in 2016. When calculated, e-commerce has contributed approximately RM74.6 billion (US$19 billion) to Malaysia’s GDP almost two years ago and this figure is expected to see exponential growth in the following years.

To keep track of the fast-paced digital economy, iPrice Group released its latest figures in its Map of E-commerce report. The infographic analyses Malaysia’s top 50 e-commerce based on web traffic, mobile app rankings (both iOS Store and Google Play), social media followers (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter), and the number of employees (LinkedIn).

Here are the key findings with the updated data.

Lazada maintains its market lead on desktop

In Q1 2018, Lazada maintained its lead with an average online traffic of 48.4 million followed by Shopee in second with 13.7 million and 11street at 13.2 million. In a span of four quarters, Lazada’s average monthly traffic grew 25.3 per cent from 38.6 million to 48.4 million. Within the same period, there was a rise in the number of employees from 361 to 442 according to LinkedIn.

In Q1 2018 Lazada was prominent in the headlines as they saw an increased commitment from Alibaba. The Chinese e-commerce giant pumped in an additional US$2 billion investment into Lazada, which now totals at US$4 billion from a US$2 billion infusion over the past two years. This probably spurred Lazada’s growth in Q1 and is expected to maintain its lead for the rest of 2018.

Shopee overtakes 11street as the second most visited e-commerce site

For the first time, Shopee displaced 11street as the 2nd most visited e-commerce site with an average traffic of 13.7 million for Q1 2018. In less than a year, Shopee experienced 302.9 per cent growth, appearing at 5th place in the Map of E-commerce in Q2 2017 with 3.4 million average visitors and now 2nd place with 13.7 million average visitors as of Q1 2018.

Shopee’s rapid rise now means that the SEA (formerly known as Garena) owned e-commerce site is Lazada’s closest competitor on the desktop. However, on the mobile platform, Shopee has been leading the pack as the highest ranked shopping app since December 2017. Trailing behind in mobile ranking are Lazada, 11street, and Zalora.

Each e-commerce mobile shopping app in the Map of E-commerce was ranked based on its average rank recorded on both iOS Store and Google Play Store.

Q4 is the most vital period for online stores

As of Q1 2018, iPrice Group has been ranking Malaysia’s top e-commerce for four consecutive quarters. When comparing online traffic, it was found that Q4 (October, November and December 2017) was the most important month for e-commerce.

In Q4, online traffic was the highest and this was no surprise as most major online sale periods took place in the last three months of 2017. Among the most significant sale period were the MYCyberSale, 11.11 Sale (Singles Day), 12.12 Sale and the year-end sale.

E-commerce in Malaysia has provided more than 1,600 jobs

With LinkedIn, we found that Malaysia’s top 50 e-commerce companies have provided more than 1,600 jobs in the country. The actual figures might be significantly higher as not all currently in the e-commerce sector might have an updated or active LinkedIn account.

Malaysia’s top three e-commerce remains consistent

Looking specifically at Malaysian-based eCommerce, Lelong, Hermo, and GoShop consistently rank as Malaysia’s top three platforms for Q1 2018. On average, Lelong has about 9.5 million visitors while GoShop has 1.4 million, and Hermo has 1.1 million visitors. Lelong remains as the oldest e-commerce site in the list as it was founded in 1998 by Kwok Wei and Richard Tan through Interbase Resources Sdn Bhd.

View the full infographic & our study methodology here: https://iprice.my/insights/mapofecommerce/en/

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