Southeast Asia is getting another major online retailer very soon

It looks like this is it. A report published by TechCrunch hints that Amazon‘s push into Southeast Asia is “imminent” and we will likely see their entry into this market sooner than you think.

Amazon’s interest in entering the Southeast Asian market has been reported before with early indications suggesting a launch as early as Q1 2017. However, that was delayed following “complications“.

Now, though, the website indicates that the e-commerce giant’s entry plans are finally underway and that a “source with knowledge of the plans” says that it could happen as early as this week itself.

Amazon will apparently kick things off with Singapore because of the country’s “westernised consumer consumption and its position as a regional hub”. That said, the entire e-commerce market in this region is said to grow from USD5.5 billion in 2015 to USD87.8 billion in 2025 with Indonesia accounting for over 50% of that spending.

Naturally, Indonesia will be on the company’s radar, but it does make sense to start things in Singapore.

Further evidence of Amazon’s imminent comes in their marketing efforts with Singaporean online influencers, leaving a trail of care packages that bear the company’s distinct smirking arrow logo.

For Malaysia, we’re one of the six primary markets in the region with online retail predicted to grow by 23% annually until 2020. The actual launch in Singapore won’t actually mean that much for us yet but it is a start for the service’s potential launch in Malaysia.

That said, for the Amazon to be competitive, they really need to pull out all the stops because their rivals like Alibaba already have a head start in the region when the purchased a majority stake in e-commerce site Lazada.

Still, Amazon’s brand presence is hard to deny so that will probably give them an edge.

What do you guys think? What would make you choose to buy from Amazon over Lazada or any of our other e-commerce sites? Let me know in the comments below.

[SOURCE, VIA]