Chinese e-commerce giants dominate ASEAN markets, capturing nearly half of regional share

Chinese e-commerce platforms are making rapid inroads into Southeast Asia, leveraging their strengths in low prices and fast delivery to capture nearly half of the region’s online retail market — including Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

According to consulting firm Bain & Company, in 2024 major Chinese players such as Alibaba, ByteDance’s TikTok Shop, Shein, and Temu jointly hold around 50% of the e-commerce market across key ASEAN economies. The report also noted that these firms are expanding well beyond Asia, entering major markets from the United States to Brazil.

The global expansion of Chinese e-commerce firms stems from two key drivers: a slowdown in China’s domestic economy, prompting companies to seek new markets, and ongoing US-China trade tensions, underscoring Beijing’s determination to strengthen its global digital footprint.

Despite tariff barriers, Chinese online retailers continue to thrive globally, particularly in markets that value affordability and convenience.

Taobao, Alibaba’s flagship platform, has expanded its Singles’ Day promotions — the world’s largest shopping event — to 20 global regions this year, transforming what began as a domestic phenomenon into a global retail festival rivaling Amazon’s Black Friday.

While global expansion only began in earnest recently, last year Taobao Malaysia promoted Singles’ Day in English for the first time, alongside Chinese-language campaigns — a move signalling its ambition to reach a wider international audience.

Analysts credit Chinese e-commerce firms’ overseas success to the lessons learned in their hyper-competitive domestic market. Three major advantages underpin their growth: live-stream shopping, rapid product innovation, and ultra-fast logistics.

China remains the world’s most competitive e-commerce training ground — so much so that Amazon shut down its domestic marketplace in 2019, unable to compete with local Chinese players.

China’s e-commerce market is now twice the size of the United States, with a gross merchandise value (GMV) of US$2.32 trillion last year, compared with the US$1.05 trillion GMV in the US.

Within ASEAN, Indonesia leads with a GMV of US$62 billion in 2024, followed by Thailand and Vietnam at US$30 billion each, and the Philippines at US$20 billion. Singapore, meanwhile, remains a smaller market with US$8.55 billion in GMV.

However, Bain noted that Chinese players face challenges too. In Singapore, Lazada — an Alibaba subsidiary — has lost market share to Shopee, the region’s dominant platform. Meanwhile, Amazon and Walmart continue to pose strong global competition.

Financial data underscores the speed of this international growth. Alibaba’s international digital and e-commerce division posted 19% revenue growth, reaching 34.74 billion yuan, surpassing its cloud-computing business though still below domestic e-commerce earnings.

Separately, fintech firm FundPark approved US$3 billion in loans to small Chinese businesses engaged in cross-border e-commerce, achieving in just over a year what previously took six years.

Meanwhile, US companies still dominate their home turf. While Chinese groups like PDD Holdings, Alibaba, and ByteDance control most of China’s e-commerce market, American firms command about 95% of the US market share.

Amazon reported net sales of US$100 billion in North America and US$36.76 billion in international markets in Q2 2025, outpacing Alibaba’s total domestic and global e-commerce sales combined. Walmart posted US$23.7 billion in online US sales and US$8.3 billion abroad for the same quarter — a 22% year-on-year increase.