Facebook, Line bet on social commerce
published : 15 Jul 2021 at 05:38 Social commerce has seen 15-20% growth per year, on par with the growth in e-commerce.
Social media giants Line and Facebook are ramping up efforts to attract merchants and offer new features to boost shopping experiences in order to drive growth in the country s burgeoning social commerce market, valued at 160 billion baht. The pandemic is driving merchants shift to online channels as evidence shows an uptick of new sellers on Line Shopping, said Lertad Supadhiloke, head of e-commerce at Line Thailand.
More than 7 million users are engaging with Line Shopping, a two-fold increase from last year, he said, noting there are around 200,000 merchants on the platform currently, a seven-fold surge from April 2020 to April 2021.
Naver founder to target Google, Alibaba and Amazon
Posted : 2021-01-21 18:32
Updated : 2021-01-25 20:08
Naver founder Lee Hae-jin speaks at the company s data center Gak in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, in July last year. / Courtesy of Naver
By Kim Jae-heun
Naver founder Lee Hae-jin has been appointed as chairman of A Holdings, a joint venture established between Korean company Naver and Japanese conglomerate SoftBank to compete with American and Chinese rivals including Google, Alibaba and Amazon.
Line is the most-used mobile messenger application in Japan and is operated by Line Corporation. Yahoo Japan is the biggest portal website in the country and is owned by SoftBank. After the merger, A Holdings is expected to have 130 million monthly average users in Japan.