Shopee also crossed the 25 million download mark and has 65 million product listings on the platform
Garena’s mobile P2P online marketplace, Shopee, had about as good of a first year as could be expected, generating US$1.8 billion in annualised gross merchandise volume (GMV or the total value of merchandise sold) over the last 12 months.
To put that number in perspective, it is US$500 million more than Lazada reported for its annualised GMV in March 2016 (US$1.3 billion).
Shopee said it got 25 million downloads and 65 million product listings across seven markets over the last year. It operates in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan.
Because the business models are very similar, Shopee is often compared to the Singaporean startup Carousell. In an article published in October, e27 reported Carousell had launched in 14 cities and had surpassed 45 million listings on its platform.
“As we look forward to another exciting year in 2017, we expect to maintain the strong double-digit growth that we’ve experienced in the past year. We will also continue to focus our efforts on optimizing the product, improving the end-to-end user experience and in empowering entrepreneurs to expand and grow their online businesses,” said Shopee CEO Chris Feng in a statement.
Also Read: Ten years later, Southeast Asia could see Shopee’s domination in C2C marketplace
50 per cent of Shopee users are active in the app daily and the average engagement period is 20 minutes, according to a consumer report released by Shopee this week.
Shopee also released some interesting Singapore-specific data. 70 per cent of people in the city use the in-app messaging service before completing the transaction and the most active times for people using Shopee are 12pm to 3pm (with a spike at 12pm).
Also Read: How digital companies in SEA can build a competitive edge
Shopee officially launched in November 2015.
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