Shopee layoffs signal stiff challenges ahead

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Hi there,

News about layoffs has been coming in thick and fast here at Tech in Asia as the tech industry reels amid the global downturn in markets.

On Monday, we broke the news about Shopee laying off members of teams across continents.

Shopee has had a tight grip on the region’s ecommerce scene, toppling the dominance of Alibaba-backed Lazada over the past several years. Sea Group has tried to expand Shopee not just vertically (ShopeeFood, ShopeePay) but also geographically (Europe, India, Latam).

The wild ride seems to have hit a screeching halt. This week’s big announcement comes after Shopee had to shut operations in France and India earlier this year.

In this special edition of our Hot Take, my colleague, Putra Muskita, analyzes why this time around, Shopee’s payments and food delivery teams bore the brunt of the job cuts and what it means for the future of Sea Group.

But enough about the bad news.

My colleague, Jofie Yordan, also sketches out a profile of Super, a rising star in Indonesia’s social commerce space. In early June, the Y Combinator-backed startup scooped up US$70 million in funding.

The company is targeting the nearly US$150 billion fast-moving consumer goods market in the rural and non-Tier 1 towns of Indonesia. It caters to customers who prefer to shop directly at retail stores rather than online.

The real threat to Super and other social commerce startups in the archipelago is from omnipresent supermarket chains, as Jofie notes. Super is aiming to be profitable in two years – a goal that is, now more than ever, surely welcome news to its investors.

– Samreen

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