Shopee was founded in November 2015 and covers nine major markets including Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil and Mexico. At the same time, Shopee has set up offices in Shenzhen, Shanghai and Hong Kong, China. Shopee’s gross merchandise volume (GMV) reached US$10.3 billion in 2018, a year-on-year increase of 149.9%, making it the leading e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia and Taiwan.
In 2019, Shopee’s GMV reached US$17.6 billion, a year-on-year increase of 71%, and the number of app downloads exceeded 200 million. The number of employees spread across Southeast Asia exceeds 8,000. According to statistics from App Annie, an authoritative mobile data analysis platform, Shopee won the triple crown of shopping app visits, downloads and monthly active users in Southeast Asia for two consecutive quarters in 2019.
Shopee’s cross-border business in China has performed well, and the increase in single volume has repeatedly outperformed the market. During the 2019 “11.11” and “12.12” promotions, the number of orders from cross-border sellers increased by 9 to 10 times compared to normal days. Shopee provides Chinese sellers with solutions such as self-built logistics SLS, customer service in small languages, and payment guarantees. Sellers can easily reach the Southeast Asian and Taiwan markets through the platform. Since the second half of 2018, the Shopee platform has achieved leapfrog growth, but the number of Chinese sellers is only less than 100,000. It is still actively recruiting merchants and has great development potential. In June 2019, Shopee reached a strategic cooperation with Hangzhou City to build the “New Hangzhou Line” of the Digital Silk Road. In October of the same year, Shopee announced the opening of the Brazilian market. By 2020, Shopee has won a total of 2.8 billion orders, with a GMV of up to US$35.4 billion.