Recently, Meltwater Venture released the "2026 Southeast Asia E-commerce Report." The data shows that by 2025, the total GMV of platform e-commerce in Southeast Asia will exceed one trillion RMB (approximately $157.6 billion), a year-on-year increase of 22.8%, nearly triple the level in 2020. Shopee, Lazada, and TikTok Shop collectively hold 98.8% of the market share, further solidifying the "three-legged" market structure.

In terms of GMV growth rate, Thailand and Malaysia are leading the way, with year-on-year growth rates of 51.8% and 47.6%, respectively. Vietnam, the Philippines, and Singapore have all achieved double-digit growth exceeding 20%. Lazada has become the only growing player among the top platforms in the Singapore market, further expanding its market share to 36%. This indicates that mature markets with higher demands for brands and high-quality products are accelerating the shift in Southeast Asia's e-commerce landscape from price competition to quality competition.

The report points out that Southeast Asian e-commerce platforms are entering a new stage of development. The industry is transitioning from scale expansion to refined operations, which means a comprehensive improvement in control over demand generation, fulfillment efficiency, and profit margins. On the supply side, global brands continue to expand into the Southeast Asian market, providing consumers with a richer selection of high-quality products. The report also mentions that, in line with global e-commerce trends, AI is gradually permeating various aspects of Southeast Asian e-commerce, potentially reshaping the industry landscape.

On the supply side, Chinese brands continue to expand into the Southeast Asian market. In September 2025, Lazada launched the "Tmall One-Click Easy Overseas" project. Within months of its launch, over 8,000 brands from the Tmall platform batch-moved into Lazada, with the initial GMV rapidly breaking through $100 million.

Benefiting from Alibaba Group's continuous large-scale investment in AI, Lazada has also applied AI to various aspects such as consumer experience and merchant operations. On the consumer side, the cumulative number of users using AI smart shopping guides is nearly 100 million, with AI applied to over 50% of product detail pages. On the merchant side, more than 330,000 stores have activated AI customer service, becoming a central hub for intelligent merchant services.