Alibaba has poured another US$230 million into its Southeast Asia-focused ecommerce platform Lazada, according to data from Alternatives.pe, which tracks filings in Singapore.
With this, the Chinese tech giant has poured a total of roughly US$7.7 billion into Lazada since 2016, when it invested US$1 billion into the Shopee rival to take a controlling stake.
This would also mark Alibaba’s first injection into Lazada this year. In 2023, the former invested over US$1.8 billion into the latter.
The new funding comes as ecommerce players in Southeast Asian turn to lower costs to get ahead of their competition. Lazada in particular launched its Choice offering last year, a platform that goes toe-to-toe with Temu and Shein in terms of low-cost offerings.
Before this, Alibaba said the Choice platform helped AliExpress – its global ecommerce marketplace – log over 60% order growth in the quarter ending December 2023 compared to the previous quarter. This trend continued for the quarter ending March this year.
Earlier this year, co-founder Jack Ma told Alibaba’s staff in a letter that the company has taken “a surgical approach to cure the ailments of a large company.”
This follows Alibaba taking a back seat to Pinduoduo parent PDD Holdings last year in terms of shares. Since then, the former made efforts to simplify its business structure and boost efficiency, such as increasing synergies between logistics arm Cainiao and its ecommerce business.
See also: Southeast Asia’s ecommerce players go low to get ahead in price war
Editing by Lorenzo Kyle Subido
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