iDEA: Internet economy to be worth $15 bn by 2020

Ecommerce on the rise as customers go mobile

Ecommerce market size set to peak at US$15 billion by 2020 

Tiki, Sendo, and Adayroi recorded positive results in the first quarter of this year, according to the latest report released on April 25 by the iPrice Group, a meta-search website.

Google has projected that Vietnam will be the fastest-growing e-commerce market in Southeast Asia by 2025, but along with this prediction comes heated competition for dominance in the market.

With Lazada and Shopee’s deep pockets, there have been concerns about the future of local e-commerce players. The latest figures, however, show that local companies like Tiki and Sendo have reason to believe in a bright future.

Positive progress at the top

The first quarter also saw several positive trends for local players, especially Tiki, Sendo, and Adayroi.

iPrice’s latest data shows that even though this past quarter included the Tet (lunar new year) holiday, which is usually time e-commerce business in general may struggle, these three merchants still managed to maintain good results traffic-wise.

Best in this regard was Tiki. Similar to the fourth quarter of 2018, the website continued to receive over 35 million visits each month on average in the quarter, putting it solidly in second position nationally, higher than international competitor Lazada Vietnam and not too far behind the top-ranked Shopee. The result also means that Tiki’s web traffic has been growing at a rate of 23 per cent per quarter on average since last year’s second quarter.

These signs help confirm the upward direction Tiki has been taking in recent times, ever since it secured investment from JD at the beginning of 2018.

Sendo and Adayroi have also seen encouraging signs. According to iPrice’s Map of E-commerce, the two companies both have an average traffic growth rate of over 16 per cent per quarter.

Sendo’s CEO Tran Hai Linh told foreign media that his company was on track to achieve its target of $1 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV) much earlier than the previously projected 2020.

Local players fighting

“2019 will be an inflection point,” Mr. Linh went on. “The market will grow much faster and we will see sizable businesses becoming comparable to regional players, with customers becoming more familiar with e-commerce.”

iPrice’s previous report in 2018 agreed with such predictions. The report showed that Sendo, Tiki, and thegioididong, three local e-commerce players, did well enough last year to be ranked among the top 10 e-commerce players in Southeast Asia in terms of website traffic.

This ranking on one hand helps prove the enormous interest in online shopping among Vietnamese consumers and on the other hand shows that local players such as these three are fully capable of surviving the fierce competition from regional giants.

Mr. Jeremy Chew, Regional Market Analyst at iPrice, explained that a familiarity with the market and consumer mindsets are particularly important when it comes to e-commerce. And this is exactly the strengths local players who choose to focus on one single market like Tiki, Sendo, and the like hold.

Proof of this can be found in their successful campaigns for the Tet holidays. Sendo’s “Cho Tet” campaign proved a success on social media, gathering a strong wave of support from local people, which led to it being included in Buzzmetric’s top 10 most influential social campaigns last January. Not to be overtaken, Tiki’s video campaign for the holiday was noted by Google for its success.

iPrice concluded in their report that once local e-commerce companies gain access to more funding, they all have the ability to fight strongly and win big in the market.

VN Economic Times