The big fishes in Southeast Asia’s online grocery pond

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Hello readers,

In the technology adoption curve for online grocery shopping, I would fall under “laggards”: I’m one of those who still do their grocery shopping physically at the supermarkets. While it’s partly because I’m an impatient buyer and prefer to get groceries in an “I want it, I get it” kind of way, buying groceries online also doesn’t seem as…fun. Where else could I knock on watermelons if not at the supermarkets?

Regardless, I am clearly the odd one out because online grocery platforms are on the up and up, and according to a report, so are the number of their users.

Today we look at:

• The who’s who in Southeast Asia’s online grocery market
• A decade of the top-funded startups in Southeast Asia
• Other newsy highlights such as ByteDance suing Tencent, and Ant Group’s profits before everything went south

PREMIUM SUMMARY

Raisin’ the roof in Southeast Asia’s online grocery space

Online grocery has been a boiling-hot industry since the global pandemic hit last year. The attention is not unusual, considering how many users have jumped on the online grocery shopping bandwagon for the first time: 47% of them in Southeast Asia only started doing so last year. So which are the platforms getting all the attention?

• The big fry: Tech giants like Grab, Lazada, and Shopee had long been testing the waters in online grocery shopping. They ramped up their efforts last year, and are now engaging in a grocery war in countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and more.
• There isn’t mushroom?: Aside from the major players that span multiple countries, single-market online grocery platforms like Redmart, Chilibeli, and more are also thriving in their own niches.
• Profitability is still a tough nut to crack: But although online grocery shopping is on the rise, the players are still suffering from low-profit margins. RedMart, for example, is not profitable yet even though it leads the online grocery space in Singapore.

Dive deeper into the charts: The key players in Southeast Asia’s online grocery market

PREMIUM SUMMARY

A decade of startups in Southeast Asia