SoftBank-backed Coupang starts hiring for top positions in Singapore

South Korea’s Coupang is hiring for several positions based in Singapore, signaling its push into the city-state’s ecommerce scene, which is largely led by regional players.

Photo credit: Coupang

According to its LinkedIn page, Coupang is looking to fill at least seven lead positions in Singapore, including heads for operations, retail, and logistics. The SoftBank-backed online retailer is also searching for a senior front-end engineer for its video-streaming service Coupang Play.

The Korea Economic Daily recently reported that Coupang is fronting its global expansion with its entry in Singapore. Citing banking and ecommerce sources, the report said Coupang has been recruiting hundreds of employees in country, including those for logistics, marketing, sales, and payment positions.

The development comes months after Coupang bought the software assets of Hooq, a Singtel-backed video-on-demand service that filed for liquidition in March 2020.

With its potential entry in Singapore, Coupang is primed to go up against Sea’s Shopee, Alibaba’s Lazada, and US giant Amazon.

According to Sea’s latest earnings report, Shopee registered over 430 million orders in the fourth quarter of last year. Meanwhile, a March 2020 report stated that Lazada remained dominant in Singapore, as well as the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia.