Shopee claims to have entered Indonesian ecommerce’s top league in less than 3 years

Shopee CEO Chris Feng at Indonesia’s ecommerce summit (IESE).

Singapore’s Shopee has seen a quick rise in popularity since its launch two years ago.

Shopee counts 200,000 daily transactions in Indonesia.

Some metrics indicate it’s already beating fellow Singaporean mobile shopping app Carousell, which is almost three years older. Now it’s zeroing in on Indonesia, a highly contested ecommerce market potentially worth US$130 billion in a few years – Southeast Asia’s largest opportunity.

It’s been the number one free shopping app in Indonesia’s Play Store since March, overtaking regional and local rivals.

At the Indonesian ecommerce summit (IESE) last week, the startup hosted a press conference, claiming to be Indonesia’s largest ecommerce player. Shopee is a marketplace that offers a wide range of products in categories like electronics, fashion, and household products.

Shopee’s ranked among the top free shopping apps in Indonesia’s play store for a while. Now it’s number one. Data: App Annie.

This was a day after Shopee’s parent company Sea announced it took on a US$550 million investment, most of which is earmarked for Shopee in Indonesia, the firm said.

Play Store ranks don’t say much about an app’s true performance, but Shopee has more numbers to back up its claim:

• 200,000 daily transactions in the archipelago – that’s for physical goods only, not counting digital purchases like vouchers or mobile air time.
• 50 million active listings in Indonesia.
• Annualized GMV above US$3 billion across the seven countries it operates in Southeast Asia and Taiwan).

Indonesia makes up 40 to 50 percent of the startups’s transaction volume, CEO Chris Feng told Tech in Asia.

It’s tough to compare this directly with competitor’s metrics, as this data is released irregularly, if at all. Daily transactions, for example, are typically not disclosed by Indonesian ecommerce companies.

Some reference points:

One of the top-funded ecommerce companies

Free shipping, free listings