TikTok Plunges Into Southeast Asia With E-Commerce Push

May 30, 2023: TikTok Shop is a danger to influential e-commerce players, which include Shopee and Lazada in Southeast Asia.

It comes as its parent ByteDance pushes the short video app in markets outside the U.S. and India to create alternative revenue streams.

TikTok Shop is the e-commerce marketplace of TikTok’s short video app, which Chinese tech giant ByteDance owns. The shopping app enables merchants, brands, and creators to showcase and sell their goods to users.

In 2022, TikTok Shop expanded to six Southeast Asian countries — Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Thailand.

“TikTok continues to increase in Southeast Asian countries. We estimate that TikTok’s 2023 [gross merchandise value] will reach 20%~ of Shopee, which we suggest prompted Shopee to increase sales and marketing since April defensively,” said Shawn Yang, an analyst at Blue Lotus Research Institute, in a recent report on Sea Group, the owner of Shopee.

TikTok Shop’s GMV, or the total value of goods sold, skyrocketed more than four times to $4.4 billion in Southeast Asia in 2022, according to internal data obtained by tech media outlet The Information. TikTok Shop reportedly aims for a GMV target of $12 billion by 2023.

To be clear, TikTok Shop’s current GMV is only a fraction of Shopee and Lazada’s.

Shopee netted $73.5 billion in GMV in 2022, while Lazada’s GMV was $21 billion for the year through September 2021, according to available public figures.