- Alibaba remains bullish on Southeast Asia, despite struggles with its Lazada platform.
- It will maintain investments in Lazada, balancing growth and efficiency.
- Success beyond Lazada with AliExpress and Trendyol drives Alibaba’s regional commerce optimism.
Long-term vision for SE-Asia
Alibaba Group continues to view Southeast Asia as a crucial long-term market, according to the CEO of Alibaba International Digital Commerce, Jiang Fan.
This comes even as the group’s flagship Lazada platform struggles amid heightened regional competition from rivals like Temu and TikTok Shop.
Strategic measures for Lazada
Lazada recently laid off up to 30% of staff across Southeast Asia in a bid to trim losses.
But in Alibaba’s latest earnings call, Fan asserted the group will maintain “appropriate scale” investments in Lazada while balancing growth and efficiency. Alibaba injected $634 million into Lazada in December 2023.
Diversified success beyond Lazada
Beyond Lazada, Fan highlighted strong gains for other Alibaba e-commerce brands. Orders on the cross-border platform AliExpress grew 60% year-on-year thanks to its Choice business.
Revenue at the Turkish marketplace Trendyol also climbed healthily.
The optimism echoes Alibaba CFO Toby Xu’s comments that overall international commerce revenue expanded 44% annually last quarter.
Despite challenges facing Lazada, Alibaba appears confident it can compete in Southeast Asia through a diversified e-commerce portfolio.
