This newsletter was co-written with Thu Huong Le.
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Hi there,
Many of you are probably familiar with Shopee’s rapid rise in Southeast Asia in recent years. Thanks to clever marketing and a long financial leash from its parent company Sea, the new kid on the block quickly overtook more established players such as Lazada and Tokopedia to become the leading ecommerce marketplace in the region.
Could the same story be unfolding in Latin America?
In this week’s big story, we take a closer look at how Shopee has been doing in the region’s largest market, Brazil.
While geographically distant from Southeast Asia, similarities in population and ecommerce penetration mean that Latin America could be a second massive opportunity for Shopee. In fact, there are signs that the region could end up being its biggest market in the long run.
Sea has repeatedly said that its business in the area is at a “very early stage.” This is true – Shopee only launched in Brazil in the fourth quarter of 2019, and in Mexico, Colombia, and Chile only this year.
But you might be surprised to learn just how well Shopee has done in Brazil in such a short time – by some reports, its app already has over half the number of active users as market leader Mercado Libre.
With travel still a distant dream for most of us, let us take you on a journey to Latin America, if only for a few minutes.
— Simon
THE BIG STORY
Brazil could become Shopee’s biggest market, beating even Indonesia
Image credit: Timmy Loen
With Brazil emerging as one of Shopee’s key markets, we take a closer look at Latin America and major trends in the region’s ecommerce market.
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