It is learned on December 20 from CNMO, recently, Alibaba once again invested a lot of money, injecting 342.5 million US dollars (about 2.4 billion yuan) into the Southeast Asian e-commerce platform Lazada.

This is not the first time that Alibaba has provided support to this Southeast Asian company. According to public information, in 2022 alone, Alibaba has injected capital into Lazada three times. Prior to this, it invested US$378.25 million and US$912.5 million in May and August respectively, and the cumulative investment has exceeded US$1.6 billion. Such a large-scale investment is a very important project even for a company of Alibaba’s size. It can be seen that its determination to develop Southeast Asia is quite firm.

In addition to Alibaba, Chinese companies are actually not uncommon in the e-commerce market in Southeast Asia. In February 2021, Douyin took the lead in officially launching TikTok Shop in Indonesia, and then expanded it to Southeast Asian countries such as Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Before Douyin, JD actually opened the JD Indonesia station as early as 7 years ago.

After more than ten years of development, China’s e-commerce industry may be difficult to maintain a relatively high speed of development in the future. Choosing a new blue ocean market has become a good development direction for the current e-commerce giants. And Southeast Asia, which has a large population, broad market prospects and is not far from China, naturally became their first target.

From a purely geographical point of view, Southeast Asia is located in the south of China and is mainly divided into two parts: the Indochina Peninsula and the Malay Archipelago. Among them, Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar are located on the Indochina Peninsula, while Indonesia, the Philippines and other countries are located in the Malay Archipelago. It is worth noting that as of 2019, there are more than 660 million residents living in this 4.5 million square kilometers of land. Population means market. With such a large population, the market potential of Southeast Asia goes without saying.

Moreover, while the penetration rate of e-commerce is low, the Internet in Southeast Asia is quite popular. In 2021, its Internet users have exceeded 440 million, accounting for about three-quarters of the total population. This means that as long as proper guidance and promotion are carried out, these Internet users can integrate into the market and environment of e-commerce. At least in this regard, it is not difficult for the Southeast Asian e-commerce industry to expand its market.