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

Pop quiz, hotshot: What’s the top-funded tech company today? You would likely answer Grab. But do you know which one was 10 years ago? To answer the question, we dove into the top-funded tech companies from 2011 to 2021 so that you can see the changes in trends at different moments within that time.

• 2010’s crown went to… Singapore-based online property platform PropertyGuru. The company is still huge today, having raised US$220 million in September last year from global investment firms TPG and KKR.
• 2016~2019 was particularly exciting… From the chart, you will notice a funding war happening between Lazada, Sea Group, Tokopedia, and Gojek during those four years. But Grab has since swooped in and is currently leading them all by a big margin.

Full chart: Southeast Asia’s top-funded tech companies (2011-2021)

QUICK BYTES

1️⃣ ByteDance vs Tencent

ByteDance, the operator of the Chinese short-video app Douyin, has sued WeChat owner Tencent for monopolistic behavior and is asking for US$13.94 million in compensation. Tencent has reportedly prohibited users from sharing content from Douyin on its messaging platforms WeChat and QQ.

2️⃣ Ant Group’s shining profits pre-crackdown

Alibaba’s fintech arm Ant Group had reportedly posted US$2.3 billion in profit in the quarter before Chinese regulators suspended its (what would have been) blockbuster US$35 million IPO last year. As regulators continue to clamp down on Ant Group, the Chinese company would likely see a reduction in growth moving forward.

3️⃣ Gamers, unite!

Global gaming and lifestyle brand Razer is looking to hire roughly 1,000 employees for its new Southeast Asia headquarters in Singapore. The Hong Kong-listed company, which manufactures gaming and esports peripherals, expects to hit breakeven for the financial year ended December 31, 2020 on a GAAP basis.

4️⃣ Mo’ money for digital payments

The Indian government has allocated US$205 million of its 2021 budget to boost digital payments in the country. That’s good news to payments platforms in the South Asian giant, including Walmart-owned PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm.

5️⃣ Onward and upward

Filecoin Frontier Accelerator, an accelerator program powered by global blockchain accelerator and investor LongHash Ventures, has unveiled the 11 startups in its program that intends to deliver its vision of Web 3.0. Some of the companies include a platform that helps users create tamper-proof records of media content, and a startup that offers a suite of tools for enabling multiplayer competitions in single-player games.

6️⃣ “Two is better than one” applies to gaming too

Chinese social gaming startup Guangzhou Quwan Network Technology has closed US$100 million in series B funding. Founded in 2014, Quwan provides services including instant voice messaging, social gaming, esports, and game distribution.

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