Research in Partnership with App Annie Intelligence and SimilarWeb to Establish the Map of E-commerce in the Philippines for the 3rd Quarter of 2019
Lazada maintains its lead as SEA's most visited e-commerce platform. Shopee ramps up against Lazada’s lead by 66% becoming Lazada's closest competition by November 2018. SEA's top 10 e-commerce platforms grew at an average of 53% in 2018 compared against the previous year. E-commerce players from Indonesia and Vietnam namely Tokopedia, Bukalapak, Blibli, Thegioididong, and Tiki are dominating the SEA region despite its only available locally. The year 2018 has been significant for the e-commerce industry in Southeast Asia. Among the notable highlights in the region were from Indonesia's two eCommerce giants Tokopedia and Bukalapak. Tokopedia received a $1.1 billion funding from Alibaba Group- SoftBank while Bukalapak, on the other hand became Indonesia’s fourth Unicorn. Meanwhile Lazada, the biggest eCommerce in SEA received an additional US$4 billion. A recent study by Google forecasts that the e-commerce industry in the region will be valued $23 billion in gross merchandise revenue (GMV) by the end of the year. By 2025, the SEA e-commerce industry's estimated value will be US$102 billion in GMV. Given the potential and rapid growth of SEA e-commerce, iPrice Group conducted a market analysis to track which e-commerce players finished first in the region, and its exciting new competitions and developments in 2018. Our market analysis research were based from the total desktop and mobile visits of biggest e-commerce platforms from Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand. The e-commerce players included in this study is based from our Map of e-commerce report which ranks the most visited e-commerce platforms (on desktop and mobile web) in their respective countries. The Rapid Growth Of Southeast Asia’s Top 10 E-commerce Platforms Based from the overall e-commerce traffic across SEA, 10 biggest emerged are Lazada, Shopee, Tokopedia, the visits between January and November 2018 saw a drastic growth in traffic by 53% on average. This positive uptrend is mirrored by Google’s report stating that the online retail sector is moving quicker than expected.
To date the Philippines has been consistently the smallest eCommerce industry in SEA, this is according to Google and Temasek latest 2018 report. It highlighted that the Philippines estimated 2018 valuation grew to 5 Billion USD- a 30 percent growth from last year’s 2 Billion USD. By 2025, it projected that the country will experience a 25 percent growth worth 21 Billion. Meanwhile, Indonesia is projected to be the biggest market in SEA, currently it’s valuation is 27 Billion USD and is expected to hit a gross merchandise value of 100 Billion by 2025.
The anti-valentine, Singles’ day sale which occurred last 11th of November have surpassed yet again its recorded revenue from last year. While its annual growth rate is the lowest in the history of Single’s Day as it only increased to 27 percent from 25.3 Billion USD to 30.8 Billion USD. In the Philippines, Singles’ Day had been overwhelming for the merchants like Lazada as the company reported that it needed to further expand its local warehouse due to after sale surge. Lazada Philippines’ CEO of Logistics, Juan Spencer, said that its continued growth prompted the company to scout for another logistics hub that would raise its footprint from 60,000 square meters in warehouse space to 120,00 square meters by 2021.
Recently, Jack Ma announced his retirement from a 19 year in the making the success of Alibaba Group, at the age of 54. He led the company from his humble beginnings back in his apartment to now what is known as an e-commerce giant worth $420 billion today.
The Philippine e-marketplace penetrate more Filipinos in terms of social media activity. However, it struggles to establish a strong hold in terms of traffic activity as international players are still the preferred choice for most Filipinos.
The Philippine e-commerce has been continuously growing its online market reach from the rising middle class and tech-savvy population mainly consisting of “millennials”. In fact, the global millennial workforce is expected to be at least half of the world population by 2020, according to PwC report.
The population of women accounts for about half of the world’s working-age population, yet women are less likely to be given opportunities for economic participation. “If every country matched the progress toward gender parity of its fastest-improving neighbour, global GDP could increase by up to $12 trillion in 2025.” according to the McKinsey Global Institute 2018 Report.
Due to the competitive eCommerce landscape across Asia as well as its high consumer expectations, there is an increasing demand for free shipping, faster deliveries and consumer-centric return policies. In fact, according to UPS Pulse of the Online Shoppers 2018, only 57% of online shoppers in Asia are satisfied with their shopping experience, the lowest in all regions surveyed. Among the areas in online retail surveyed, return policy had one of the lowest satisfaction rating in Asia. The results only 47% are satisfied with the ease of making returns, although only 4 in 10 have returned an online purchase.
In 2017, Philippine Government’s Initiative “The Philippine Roadmap for the Digital Start-ups” launched incubator and accelerator programs: AIM-Dado Banatao Incubator, Startup Village, Voyager Innovations, Google Launchpad Accelerator; the passing of the senate bills: The Innovative Startup Bill, Philippine Innovation Act and the development of event management pioneering TechTonic. It’s also in this pivotal year, that the country had its first unicorn in Robbie Antonio’s Revolution Precrafted.
Last September 13, Apple unveiled its most anticipated flagships iPhone 8, iPhone 8 plus and iPhone X which coincided with its 10th year anniversary. With its full retail prices of less than 1,000 USD – the most expensive iPhone to date, there is a growing market for less priced older iPhone models.