Five of the 10 ecommerce platforms registered in Vietnam recorded high numbers of visits from desktop and mobile users in the ASEAN region, according to a year-end review on Vietnamese ecommerce in 2018, released by iPrice Group, a Malaysia-based online shopping aggregator.

A shipper of Tiki gives a box of goods to a customer in this file photo. Tiki, along with four other local ecommerce platforms, recorded high numbers of visits from desktop and mobile users in the ASEAN region in 2018

The five are Lazada, Shopee, Tiki, Thegioididong and Sendo. Of these, Lazada and Shopee are multinational firms, while the other three are local firms.

According to the ranking, Tiki, Thegioididong and Sendo delivered impressive performances as they are only available in the local market, even outperforming Chinese JD Group, which has a strong presence in Indonesia and Thailand.

Thegioididong is the only firm among the top 10 to exclusively sell technology devices and saw an average total number of visits of over 29 million per month.

To achieve strong results, the five operators reportedly invested heavily in their platforms, using their own budget along with capital injected by local and foreign investors.

Tiki, for instance, received capital from Chinese ecommerce giant JD.com in early 2018, but the total value remains unknown. As of September last year, it continued to be backed by an additional VND122 billion by VNG, a local technology corporation. Meanwhile, Sendo attracted US$51 million last year from Japanese firm SBI Holdings and other investors.

Also in 2018, Shopee Vietnam added more than VND1.2 trillion to its charter capital from its parent company in Singapore, the SEA Group, while the Alibaba-backed Lazada Vietnam received an additional US$2 billion from the Chinese group.

The investment has boosted the growth of these ecommerce operators. Regarding Tiki, iPrice recorded a significant increase in its number of total website visits during the third quarter of 2018, up nearly 48% versus the previous quarter. Moreover, Tiki had advanced to become the second most visited ecommerce platform nationwide by October 2018.

The review also shows that Shopee Vietnam has made a massive step forward in its operations. The ecommerce site ranked third on the list of the most visited ecommerce platforms within seven months since its debut in early 2018. This was also the first time that Lazada lost its leading position since the second quarter of 2017.

iPrice recorded a rising number of consumers shopping on these platforms during the holidays or on special days such as Black Friday, Single’s Day and Lazada’s Birthday. The Single’s Day event last year (November 11) alone saw a 204% increase in the number of total visits to these online channels, compared with the year-ago figure.

SGT