JD.com hastens e-commerce race in Southeast Asia with US$550 million stake sale to Google
Google’s investment in JD.com comes as e-commerce companies, including Alibaba Group and Amazon, race to expand their global reach and carve a larger slice of market share in regions such as Southeast Asia, where the potential for e-commerce is viewed as largely untapped.
Chinese online retailer JD.com has signed on Google as a strategic partner in a move seen to complement the former’s ambitions to expand into Southeast Asia while giving the latter a toehold in a market that it gave up in 2010.
Under the arrangement, JD.com will sell a less than 1 per cent stake to Google for US$550 million. JD.com will also join Google Shopping, an advertising platform for online merchants, where its products will be available to consumers globally.
Google’s investment in JD.com comes as e-commerce companies, including Alibaba Group and Amazon, race to expand their global reach and carve a larger slice of market share in regions such as Southeast Asia, where the potential for e-commerce is viewed as largely untapped.
Chinese smartphones brands such as Vivo, Oppo and Xiaomi have proven to be a hit among consumers in the region of 650 million people with their affordably priced models. Tencent Holdings, the online gaming and social media giant, is the largest shareholder in Singapore-based Sea, which operates Shopee, a regional e-commerce platform. Other internet services companies such as Didi Chuxing and Meituan Dianping have invested in local champions such as Singapore-based Grab and Jakarta-based Go-jek, respectively.
Alibaba bought Singapore-based e-commerce platform Lazada and appointed one of its co-founders and most senior executives, Lucy Peng, to head the push into Southeast Asia. Alibaba is the parent company of the South China Morning Post.