Why Southeast Asia Will Never Have An Alipay Or Tenpay

Southeast Asia’s largest platform companies all reported second quarter earnings recently. Some results were better than others, but Sea Group, Grab and GoTo all continue to struggle with the fundamentals. The latter two companies are not profitable, while Sea’s performance underwhelmed investors.

In a nutshell, these companies have all attempted to replicate the massive success of Alipay and Tenpay by building their own self-contained ecosystems, but the strategy does not make sense in Southeast Asia, which is fragmented relative to China. Each country has different market demographics and regulations. Competition is extremely fierce compared to what the Chinese companies faced in their early days.