The Chinese ecommerce giants Alibaba and JD.com are forging ahead in South East Asia, whilst Amazon is failing to plant its roots in the market. Both Alibaba and JD.com have said that they will spend billions of dollars to establish themselves in the region, which is set to see retail ecommerce sales of over 1.3 trillion US dollars by the end of 2017. The companies seem determined to capitalise on the fact that ecommerce is growing rapidly in the region, with ecommerce sales figures set to hit 3 trillion US dollars by 2021. Alibaba recently invested 1.1 billion US dollars in the Indonesian ecommerce site Tokopedia. Likewise, JD.com has recently announced a partnership with the Thai retail giant Central Group in a bid to crack the country's ecommerce market. In contrast, Amazon has largely focused its Asian efforts in India, where it is busy battling against local giants Flipkart and Snapdeal. Its lack of interest in the rest of the South East Asian market could mean that it is stunting its own potential for future growth in this lucrative emerging market.Â
