Lazada layoffs latest consequence of intensifying SEA ecommerce war

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Hi readers,

I’ve been reporting for over a decade, and it still pains me to write about layoffs. But that was the shock and horror that greeted Lazada staff a few days into the new year.

In hindsight, everything makes sense: Lazada and other ecommerce players have been in a bloody battle to win market share. These companies or their parent firms have forked out billions of dollars to come out on top. TikTok, for example, went as far as investing US$1.5 billion in Indonesia’s Tokopedia to work around a domestic ban and reenter the market.

For Lazada, its parent Alibaba has been expanding across the globe since 2017, when co-founder Jack Ma envisioned the China-based tech giant serving two billion customers. The company has pumped US$7.4 billion into Lazada to achieve that dream, but the Southeast Asian giant has come up short.

But Lazada isn’t alone as its rivals’ earnings have also hit a ceiling. Take Shopee, for instance. Sea Group’s ecommerce unit trimmed its headcount several times from September 2022 to March 2023.

Alibaba also has to deal with competition at home. It has been surpassed in terms of market value by PDD Holdings, the parent company of Pinduoduo and Temu.

In Southeast Asia, ecommerce players have to reckon with competition that’s heating up or maybe even overheated. And if the game is to win market share, this vicious cycle of layoffs and cash burn will continue, perhaps until consolidation in this industry takes place.

— Emmanuel Samarathisa, journalist at Tech in Asia

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