Singapore's Sea to invest more in e-com platform Shopee amid TikTok threat

E-commerce giant Sea will bump up investments in its online shopping business Shopee across all markets as Chinese company TikTok’s shopping venture expands into new territories, the media reported on Wednesday.

The Southeast Asian tech company Sea, which has shut operations of its e-commerce portal Shopee in India, aims to invest more in its e-commerce unit as competition heats up, reports Nikkei Asia.

TikTok, the short video platform owned by ByteDance, launched onlineshopping service TikTok Shop in 2021, starting in Indonesia.

"TikTok Shop has expanded into other regional markets, where Sea e-commerce unit Shopee, Alibaba-owned Lazada and Indonesia's Tokopedia have dominated," the report mentioned.

Last year, Shopee revoked a number of job offers for positions at its headquarters in Singapore. The company also asked laid off employees to pay compensation for damaged work computers.

Shopee earlier initiated large scale layoffs in China, as high as 30 per cent to 60 per cent in some departments.

In March last year, Sea announced to shut operations of its e-commerce portal Shopee in India amid criticism from the local industry bodies and the government banning its marquee game 'Garena Free Fire' along with 53 Chinese apps in the country.

The company, however, said the decision to shut down e-commerce business in India has nothing to do with the government's ban on its popular game, but owing to "global market uncertainties".