While president-elect Donald Trump is working hard to stop China from becoming a global superpower, China hasn t slowed its digital hegemony in Southeast Asia — and in Southeast Asia, China means Alibaba of course .
After identifying Southeast Asia as being on the cusp of an eCommerce golden age, Jack Ma and his team swooped in four months later and picked up Lazada, the region s leading ecommerce marketplace, for a crisp $1 billion.
The Lazada-Alibaba deal, Alibaba s largest overseas acquisition to date, is a pivotal event for Southeast Asia and its implications span the entire commercial value chain from digital advertising, logistics, finance, insurance and even healthcare.
A look back at 2016
Even without the Lazada deal, this year still proved eventful for eCommerce in the region: fast-fashion fizzled out and Rocket Internet s Zalora ending up selling for peanuts to Thai retail conglomerate Central Group.
Singpost s headaches continued after the sudden removal of its Group CEO Wolfgang Baier in 2015, the company also lost its COO, CFO and the group s chairman stepped down amidst a corporate governance scandal.
