Lazada is the third-largest e-commerce participant in Indonesia, after Sea Limited’s Shopee and Tokopedia, in accordance with Momentum Works.
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SINGAPORE — Alibaba-owned Lazada started its newest round of layoffs on Wednesday, an individual with direct data of the matter instructed CNBC, following a slew of media reports about cuts on the Southeast Asian e-commerce big.
Employees across all Southeast Asia markets from all ranges are affected, in accordance with the one who declined to be named because of the delicate nature of the topic. Those affected may very well be “in the a whole lot,” with Singapore essentially the most impacted, mentioned the particular person.
Lazada’s Singapore spokesperson didn’t verify that staff had been being laid off, however instructed CNBC on Wednesday: “We are making proactive changes to rework our workforce, to higher place ourselves for a extra agile, streamlined manner of working to fulfill future enterprise wants.”
“This transformation necessitates that we reassess our workforce necessities and operational construction to make sure Lazada is best positioned to future-proof our enterprise and other people,” the corporate added.
Lazada operates across Southeast Asia international locations specifically Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
According to CNBC’s supply, all features together with business, retail and advertising and marketing will probably be affected by the layoffs, which the particular person mentioned are occurring this week. Some staff have obtained assembly invitations from the corporate however have but to acquire any particulars, they mentioned.
Lazada grew to become a subsidiary of Alibaba Group after the Chinese tech big acquired management of it in 2016. The firm operates beneath Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group, which additionally contains AliExpress, Trendyol and Daraz.
Rising competitors
The e-commerce company is facing stiff competition from rivals akin to Sea Limited‘s Shopee and TikTookay Shop in the area. TikTookay is a brief video app owned by Chinese tech big ByteDance.
In December, Indonesia’s tech big GoTo and TikTok announced a partnership the place Tokopedia and TikTookay Shop Indonesia’s companies will probably be mixed into an enlarged Tokopedia entity. GoTo is a merger between Indonesia’s ride-hailing big Gojek and the nation’s e-commerce platform Tokopedia.
As half of the deal, TikTok will take a controlling stake of 75.01% and make investments $1.5 billion into the entity over time.
The deal got here after Indonesia banned e-commerce on social media platforms in October to guard native retailers, forcing TikTookay to halt its e-commerce service TikTookay Shop.
Lazada’s management crew has seen many adjustments in the previous years.
In June 2022, Lazada Group CEO Chun Li was changed by James Dong, who was chief government of Lazada Thailand and Vietnam.
In 2020, Li took over the position from Pierre Poignant, who succeeded Lucy Peng in December 2018, simply 9 months after taking over the reins.
2023 was a tumultuous year for its parent company Alibaba, which scrapped plans to spin off its cloud enterprise and went by means of a administration shake-up.
— CNBC’s Naman Tandon and Lauren Choo contributed to this report.