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Having affluent parents does not guarantee you success.
That’s inherently the case of Alibaba-owned Lazada, which has let its competitor Shopee slide ahead despite having an earlier start to capture Southeast Asia’s ecommerce.
But Alibaba is looking for a second win in this region: a pandemic-fueled growth in online groceries.
In Singapore, Lazada’s acquisition of RedMart in 2016 is already bearing fruit, with RedMart seeing a 3x income growth and better margins since the buyout.
Alibaba is hoping to do the same by leading a US$400 million investment in Vietnam’s Masan Group, owner of supermarket chain VinMart.
Can the Chinese tech giant turn things around?
After the Grab-Gojek rivalry, which almost saw a merger, the Shopee-Lazada race is definitely another one to watch.
— Thu Huong Le, journalist at Tech in Asia
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