When Sea Limited launched its prospectus to list on the New York Stock Exchange last month, the South East Asian ecommerce and gaming group sparked a war of words — or rather numbers — with Lazada, which disputed its rival’s claims to be the region’s top dog.
The spat, between companies respectively backed by China’s tech giants Tencent and Alibaba, was part of a proxy war and shone a light on what Bain & Co dubs a “clash of the titans”: a broader battle for share in this market of 200m digital consumers, who last year spent $50bn online, according to the consultancy.
It involves not just Chinese and local players but also multinationals such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, the latter rolling up in Singapore earlier this year. This showdown in Southeast Asia comes after Chinese and Western players have neatly carved up the major markets: the multinationals controlling the US and Europe and Alibaba and Tencent ruling the roost in China, where Facebook, Google’s search engine and Twitter are all blocked.