Latest news with #HussainiSaifee
Business of Fashion
2 days ago
- Business
- Business of Fashion
Shopee-Owner Sea Sales Top Estimates as Online Shoppers Keep Spending
Sea Ltd. second-quarter sales beat analysts' estimates as more of Southeast Asia's consumers turn to online shopping for anything from iPhones to daily groceries. The stock climbed 8 percent in pre-market trading after Sea said revenue rose 38 percent to a record $5.26 billion in the three months through June. Analysts estimated $5 billion on average. Net income jumped to $414.2 million from $79.9 million a year earlier, but fell short of the $444 million analysts predicted. The results assuage some concerns about the prospects of e-commerce arm Shopee. The region's top online retail platform is battling deep-pocketed global challengers including ByteDance Ltd.'s TikTok Shop and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s Lazada. Emerging players like Shein and PDD Holding Inc.'s Temu are also eyeing to break into the emerging region of 675 million people where more and more shoppers are coming online. To boost its bottom line, Shopee has been steadily raising the commissions it charges merchants in various core markets by about a third since the start of last year. The hikes, which bring Shopee's fees above its rivals, show that Sea is confident it can attract and retain merchants, helped by a broad user base and well-established delivery services. Shopee's second-quarter revenue rose 34 percent to $3.8 billion, helped by surging commissions and ad revenue. Sea is also betting on new initiatives from digital finance to logistics to grow its dominance and convince investors of its growth potential. Its logistics arm SPX Express now handles the majority of Shopee's billions of parcels annually, while its finance arm — now known as Monee — increased sales 70 percent last quarter to $882.8 million. Bookings at gaming division Garena rose 23 percent. 'In the past, cash flow from Sea's gaming arm Garena was used to grow Shopee and Monee, but now Shopee and Monee are in healthier capital positions,' Hussaini Saifee, an analyst at Maybank Securities, said before the results. 'Sea can now invest in further developing Garena which has also made a strong rebound over the last year and a half.' What Bloomberg Intelligence Says Competitive pressure remains a risk as Shopee's average monthly active users (MAUs) in 2Q25 were flat sequentially in Southeast Asia vs. 55 percent growth for Temu and 5 percent for TikTok, SensorTower data show. In Brazil, Shopee's MAUs rose 4.6 percent, MercadoLibre's 5 percent, and Temu's 35 percent. Temu's MAU growth stems from a low base, with MAU at 6 percent of Shopee's in Southeast Asia and 13 percent in Brazil as of June. By Olivia Poh and Benicia Tan Learn more: Southeast Asia's E-Commerce Leader Fends Off TikTok Singapore-based Sea boosted its sales forecast for its online retailing arm, Shopee, as it battles fierce competition from TikTok and Lazada.
Economic Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Economic Times
Hyperlocal deliveries fuel 300% stock rise for Shopee owner
Owned by Singapore-based Sea Ltd., Shopee has pulled off one of the more improbable corporate comebacks in recent memory, sending its stock soaring more than 300% since the start of 2024. Shopee, owned by Sea Ltd., has experienced a remarkable resurgence in Southeast Asia's e-commerce market, with its stock soaring. This comeback is largely attributed to SPX Express, Shopee's in-house logistics network powered by local community members. By investing heavily in its own delivery infrastructure, Shopee has successfully navigated the region's logistical challenges, driving growth and investor confidence. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads In the battle royale of global e-commerce, the names are familiar and formidable: Amazon. TikTok Shop. Shein. Temu. But in Southeast Asia, home to 675 million people and a $160 billion online shopping market, the reigning monarch is an app the color of a traffic called Shopee. And it's by Singapore-based Sea Ltd ., Shopee has pulled off one of the more improbable corporate comebacks in recent memory, sending its stock soaring more than 300% since the start of 2024. A key secret weapon is a little known logistics operation powered by an army of homemakers, students and retirees. And the help of some very large Ikea operation is SPX Express , a homegrown in-house delivery network that Sea spent years building in the shadows. While rivals like Inc. plastered ads across the city for Black Friday and TikTok Shop flooded feeds with flash sales, Shopee was busy rewiring the infrastructure of Southeast Asian commerce one community at a a familiar sight in Singapore. The retired "uncle" in flip-flops, slinging parcels across a housing block in an ever-practical blue Ikea bag. Or an entrepreneurial homemaker busily sorting a makeshift Shopee kiosk beside the elevator. They're the human backbone of SPX Express, which now handles the majority of Shopee's several billion parcels Wall Street has noticed. Shopee's success has helped Sea inch toward a $100 billion market cap, on the heels of Singaporean banking giant DBS, the region's most valuable company. The stock, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has soared 324% since hitting a low in January last year. Of the 41 analysts tracked by Bloomberg who rate Sea, 33 of them have a "buy" recommendation on the stock."Sea's significant recovery was largely driven by growth in its e-commerce business, which was executed really well during the post-Covid period," said Hussaini Saifee, an equity research analyst at Maybank Securities, who rates the stock a "buy."In 2021, Shopee was facing a conundrum: demand was exploding-especially during the Covid pandemic-but its delivery pipeline was buckling under the pressure. Until then, Shopee had relied mostly on third-party carriers like J&T Global Express and Singapore Post to navigate the logistical complexity of Southeast Asia: thousands of islands, alleys too narrow for vans, dirt roads more familiar to scooters than changed almost overnight. As online orders more than doubled in 2021, Sea bet big on building its own logistics a 2022 Sea earnings call, Chief Executive Officer Forrest Li pledged to build up its logistics business, spending nearly $1 billion that year alone. Lowering the cost of delivering parcels will be "key to long-term growth," he was a big risk during a difficult period. Sea had just lost almost 90% of its value from its 2021 peak. Investors were disillusioned about its money-making potential in a global tech rout, scrutinising Sea's growth prospects after shoppers emerging from pandemic lockdowns started cutting back on online gaming and e-commerce giant had cut about 7,000 jobs to try assuage some of these concerns. It also shuttered its e-commerce operations in some European and Latin American markets and said it would reduce expenses to cope.
Business Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Times
Hyperlocal deliveries fuel 300% stock rise for Shopee owner Sea
[SINGAPORE] In the battle royale of global e-commerce, the names are familiar and formidable: Amazon. TikTok Shop. Shein. Temu. But in South-east Asia, home to 675 million people and a US$160 billion online shopping market, the reigning monarch is an app the colour of a traffic cone. It is called Shopee. And it is thriving. Owned by Singapore-based Sea Ltd, Shopee has pulled off one of the more improbable corporate comebacks in recent memory, sending its stock soaring more than 300 per cent since the start of 2024. A key secret weapon is a little known logistics operation powered by an army of homemakers, students and retirees. And the help of some very large Ikea bags. That operation is SPX Express, a homegrown in-house delivery network that Sea spent years building in the shadows. While rivals like plastered ads across the city for Black Friday and TikTok Shop flooded feeds with flash sales, Shopee was busy rewiring the infrastructure of South-east Asian commerce one community at a time. They are a familiar sight in Singapore. The retired 'uncle' in flip-flops, slinging parcels across a housing block in an ever-practical blue Ikea bag. Or an entrepreneurial homemaker busily sorting a makeshift Shopee kiosk beside the elevator. They are the human backbone of SPX Express, which now handles the majority of Shopee's several billion parcels annually. And Wall Street has noticed. Shopee's success has helped Sea inch towards a US$100 billion market cap, on the heels of Singaporean banking giant DBS, the region's most valuable company. The stock, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has soared 324 per cent since hitting a low in January last year. Of the 41 analysts tracked by Bloomberg who rate Sea, 33 of them have a 'buy' recommendation on the stock. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up 'Sea's significant recovery was largely driven by growth in its e-commerce business, which was executed really well during the post-Covid period,' said Hussaini Saifee, an equity research analyst at Maybank Securities, who rates the stock a 'buy.' In 2021, Shopee was facing a conundrum: demand was exploding – especially during the Covid pandemic – but its delivery pipeline was buckling under the pressure. Until then, Shopee had relied mostly on third-party carriers like J&T Global Express and Singapore Post to navigate the logistical complexity of South-east Asia: thousands of islands, alleys too narrow for vans, dirt roads more familiar to scooters than trucks. That changed almost overnight. As online orders more than doubled in 2021, Sea bet big on building its own logistics arm. During a 2022 Sea earnings call, chief executive officer Forrest Li pledged to build up its logistics business, spending nearly US$1 billion that year alone. Lowering the cost of delivering parcels will be 'key to long-term growth,' he said. It was a big risk during a difficult period. Sea had just lost almost 90 per cent of its value from its 2021 peak. Investors were disillusioned about its money-making potential in a global tech rout, scrutinising Sea's growth prospects after shoppers emerging from pandemic lockdowns started cutting back on online purchases. The gaming and e-commerce giant had cut about 7,000 jobs to try assuage some of these concerns. It also shuttered its e-commerce operations in some European and Latin American markets and said it would reduce expenses to cope. CEO Li brought in Hoirul Hafiidz Bin Maksom, a bespectacled 43-year-old former hospital operator, experienced in coordinating large local teams in a high stakes, time-sensitive, customer-centric environment. Over the span of two years, as Hoirul obsessed over shortening delivery timings and ways to bring down costs, Sea built up a network of delivery drivers, warehouses and thousands of collection points. The market share of its logistics operations in South-east Asia, which was essentially non-existent in 2022, grew to about 25 per cent in 2024, according to research firm Momentum Works. 'Covid was a great accelerator for us,' said Hoirul. 'There was definitely a gap in the services available for last-mile logistics, just because e-commerce was just growing too fast during Covid. So we had to do our part and solve this problem.' Today, SPX Express is a finely tuned operation. At midnight, sorting centres buzz to life. Parcels are unpacked, scanned, and routed via conveyor belts into colour-coded plastic bags – blue, orange, green and purple – each representing a different part of the island. One such sorting facility can processes up to 400,000 parcels a day. With SPX Express, 90 per cent of its parcels are delivered the next day in Singapore. In the rest of Asia, almost half of SPX Express orders were delivered within two days. But what's truly characteristic to Shopee begins after the parcels leave the warehouse. SPX Express' edge is in its intimacy. It's the fact that your parcel might be delivered by your retired neighbour, or the kid next door looking to earn pocket money. People like John, a 64-year-old who's been delivering in his neighbourhood for four years, going up and down apartments in a quarter-mile radius to hand over hundreds of parcels every day. He does it for the money, sure – a little extra cash is always nice. But he also likes the community. 'I've made so many friends, I get to chat with elderly neighbours who welcome me into their home and witness milestones of so many families,' John said. Shopee scaled this model. Hoirul's lightbulb moment came while walking through his public housing estate last year. He noticed that neighbours were already informally receiving parcels on behalf of others. Why not pay them? This would be easy to set up, the parcels would be safe and SPX Express would be able to leverage the existing public housing infrastructure of Singapore, where more than 80 per cent of the population lives. So Shopee started doing just that – setting up collection points in the very homes of the people who live in the buildings they deliver to. Shopee now has more than 3,500 of these sites, which also include shops and lockers, across Singapore. Some look like tidy mini post offices. Others are literally living rooms stacked with brown packages and a folding table. Pearlyn Tan and her husband, a delivery driver, run one out of their flat. She handles up to 80 parcels a day. At S$0.30 per package, they earn enough to cover a few days of groceries each week. Then there is Diyana Scott, a TikTok influencer and mother of five, who turned to Shopee after losing her job earlier this year. Her whole family helps. Her kids rotate shifts and greet neighbours collecting their orders. 'I made new friendships with many mothers in the neighbourhood,' Scott said. 'I love it.' 'Shopee's vibrant orange is plastered over thousands of touchpoints all across South-east Asia – delivery trucks, parcel lockers and sometimes even on the back of motorbikes,' said Jianggan Li, founder of Singapore-based research firm Momentum Works. 'This level of visibility, coupled with the human touch, helps Shopee reinforce their presence in the fabric of life of locals; especially across South-east Asia's diverse landscape and hard-to-reach places in the region.' By the fall of 2024, Sea's logistics arm was delivering a majority of its own packages. It also briefly surpassed J&T Express, according to Momentum Works. SPX is also partnering with other companies like Shopify to expand its logistics services. Ahead of Sea's second quarter earnings on Aug 12, the company is forecast to post a record US$5 billion in revenue, according to Bloomberg estimates. Its e-commerce arm is projected to account for 72 per cent (US$3.61 billion) of sales, with value-added services including logistics estimated to contribute US$799 million, up 14 per cent from a year ago. Shopee's market share has jumped to 56 per cent of US$120 billion in gross merchandise value last year, according to Momentum Works based on the top four South-east Asian e-commerce platforms. TikTok Shop and Lazada claimed 19 per cent and 15 per cent, respectively. But SPX Express is not friction-free. Residents complain that they are using shared public spaces to sort parcels and local councils in Singapore often make them shift from one block to another. And the gig-like pay structure, with typical payouts of S$0.50 per parcel, mean workers often hustle longer hours to keep up with rising volumes. Also, while SPX may have briefly overtaken J&T Express in parcel volume, margins remain tight and SPX has yet to prove that it can win outside of Shopee's terrain as it looks to offer its logistics services to more companies. Meanwhile, TikTok Shop remains a formidable force with its tight partnership with J&T Express and deep-pocketed investment in the region. 'TikTok Shop's emergence was a concern for Shopee because they have the capital backing from ByteDance to take market share,' said Maybank's Saifee. 'Shopee's retention of its market share is linked to SPX Express, as well as increasing the assortment on their platform and bringing down prices by working together with sellers.' But it is clear that Shopee has become part of the social fabric in South-east Asia. In Indonesia, SPX collection points operate out of warungs – small family shops that double as pickup depots. In Taiwan, they have been installed in convenience stores and shops filled with Shopee lockers. In Brazil, where Shopee has also expanded, the network is growing too. John, the retiree, has witnessed first hand how fast Shopee has expanded and is not worried about the competition. The number of packages he delivers has tripled in four years. He knows his neighbours' unit numbers by heart and sometimes slips the package behind their shoe rack if they're not home. 'I just take things in my stride,' said John, hurrying off with two Ikea bags full of parcels. BLOOMBERG
Mint
4 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Hyperlocal Deliveries Fuel 300% Stock Rise for Shopee Owner Sea
In the battle royale of global e-commerce, the names are familiar and formidable: Amazon. TikTok Shop. Shein. Temu. But in Southeast Asia, home to 675 million people and a $160 billion online shopping market, the reigning monarch is an app the color of a traffic cone. It's called Shopee. And it's thriving. Owned by Singapore-based Sea Ltd., Shopee has pulled off one of the more improbable corporate comebacks in recent memory, sending its stock soaring more than 300% since the start of 2024. A key secret weapon is a little known logistics operation powered by an army of homemakers, students and retirees. And the help of some very large Ikea bags. That operation is SPX Express, a homegrown in-house delivery network that Sea spent years building in the shadows. While rivals like Inc. plastered ads across the city for Black Friday and TikTok Shop flooded feeds with flash sales, Shopee was busy rewiring the infrastructure of Southeast Asian commerce one community at a time. They're a familiar sight in Singapore. The retired 'uncle' in flip-flops, slinging parcels across a housing block in an ever-practical blue Ikea bag. Or an entrepreneurial homemaker busily sorting a makeshift Shopee kiosk beside the elevator. They're the human backbone of SPX Express, which now handles the majority of Shopee's several billion parcels annually. And Wall Street has noticed. Shopee's success has helped Sea inch toward a $100 billion market cap, on the heels of Singaporean banking giant DBS, the region's most valuable company. The stock, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has soared 324% since hitting a low in January last year. Of the 41 analysts tracked by Bloomberg who rate Sea, 33 of them have a 'buy' recommendation on the stock. 'Sea's significant recovery was largely driven by growth in its e-commerce business, which was executed really well during the post-Covid period,' said Hussaini Saifee, an equity research analyst at Maybank Securities Pte., who rates the stock a 'buy.' In 2021, Shopee was facing a conundrum: demand was exploding — especially during the Covid pandemic — but its delivery pipeline was buckling under the pressure. Until then, Shopee had relied mostly on third-party carriers like J&T Global Express Ltd. and Singapore Post to navigate the logistical complexity of Southeast Asia: thousands of islands, alleys too narrow for vans, dirt roads more familiar to scooters than trucks. That changed almost overnight. As online orders more than doubled in 2021, Sea bet big on building its own logistics arm. During a 2022 Sea earnings call, Chief Executive Officer Forrest Li pledged to build up its logistics business, spending nearly $1 billion that year alone. Lowering the cost of delivering parcels will be 'key to long-term growth,' he said. It was a big risk during a difficult period. Sea had just lost almost 90% of its value from its 2021 peak. Investors were disillusioned about its money-making potential in a global tech rout, scrutinizing Sea's growth prospects after shoppers emerging from pandemic lockdowns started cutting back on online purchases. The gaming and e-commerce giant had cut about 7,000 jobs to try assuage some of these concerns. It also shuttered its e-commerce operations in some European and Latin American markets and said it would reduce expenses to cope. Read: Sea's Path to Profit Paved With Layoffs, Single-Ply Toilet Paper CEO Li brought in Hoirul Hafiidz Bin Maksom, a bespectacled 43-year-old former hospital operator, experienced in coordinating large local teams in a high stakes, time-sensitive, customer-centric environment. Over the span of two years, as Hoirul obsessed over shortening delivery timings and ways to bring down costs, Sea built up a network of delivery drivers, warehouses and thousands of collection points. The market share of its logistics operations in Southeast Asia, which was essentially non-existent in 2022, grew to about 25% in 2024, according to research firm Momentum Works. 'Covid was a great accelerator for us,' said Hoirul. 'There was definitely a gap in the services available for last-mile logistics, just because e-commerce was just growing too fast during Covid. So we had to do our part and solve this problem.' Today, SPX Express is a finely tuned operation. At midnight, sorting centers buzz to life. Parcels are unpacked, scanned, and routed via conveyor belts into color-coded plastic bags — blue, orange, green and purple — each representing a different part of the island. One such sorting facility can processes up to 400,000 parcels a day. With SPX Express, 90% of its parcels are delivered the next day in Singapore. In the rest of Asia, almost half of SPX Express orders were delivered within two days. But what's truly characteristic to Shopee begins after the parcels leave the warehouse. SPX Express' edge is in its intimacy. It's the fact that your parcel might be delivered by your retired neighbor, or the kid next door looking to earn pocket money. People like John, a 64-year-old who's been delivering in his neighborhood for four years, going up and down apartments in a quarter-mile radius to hand over hundreds of parcels every day. He does it for the money, sure — a little extra cash is always nice. But he also likes the community. 'I've made so many friends, I get to chat with elderly neighbors who welcome me into their home and witness milestones of so many families,' John said. Shopee scaled this model. Hoirul's lightbulb moment came while walking through his public housing estate last year. He noticed that neighbors were already informally receiving parcels on behalf of others. Why not pay them? This would be easy to set up, the parcels would be safe and SPX Express would be able to leverage the existing public housing infrastructure of Singapore, where more than 80% of the population lives. So Shopee started doing just that — setting up collection points in the very homes of the people who live in the buildings they deliver to. Shopee now has more than 3,500 of these sites, which also include shops and lockers, across Singapore. Some look like tidy mini post offices. Others are literally living rooms stacked with brown packages and a folding table. Pearlyn Tan and her husband, a delivery driver, run one out of their flat. She handles up to 80 parcels a day. At 30 Singapore cents per package , they earn enough to cover a few days of groceries each week. Then there's Diyana Scott, a TikTok influencer and mother of five, who turned to Shopee after losing her job earlier this year. Her whole family helps. Her kids rotate shifts and greet neighbors collecting their orders. 'I made new friendships with many mothers in the neighborhood,' Scott said. 'I love it.' 'Shopee's vibrant orange is plastered over thousands of touchpoints all across Southeast Asia — delivery trucks, parcel lockers and sometimes even on the back of motorbikes,' said Jianggan Li, founder of Singapore-based research firm Momentum Works. 'This level of visibility, coupled with the human touch, helps Shopee reinforce their presence in the fabric of life of locals; especially across Southeast Asia's diverse landscape and hard-to-reach places in the region.' By the fall of 2024, Sea's logistics arm was delivering a majority of its own packages. It also briefly surpassed J&T Express, according to Momentum Works. SPX is also partnering with other companies like Shopify to expand its logistics services. Ahead of Sea's second quarter earnings on Aug. 12, the company is forecast to post a record $5 billion in revenue, according to Bloomberg estimates. Its e-commerce arm is projected to account for 72% of sales, with value-added services including logistics estimated to contribute $799 million, up 14% from a year ago. Shopee's market share has jumped to 56% of $120 billion in gross merchandise value last year, according to Momentum Works based on the top four Southeast Asian e-commerce platforms. TikTok Shop and Lazada claimed 19% and 15%, respectively. But SPX Express isn't friction-free. Residents complain that they are using shared public spaces to sort parcels and local councils in Singapore often make them shift from one block to another. And the gig-like pay structure, with typical payouts of S$0.50 per parcel, mean workers often hustle longer hours to keep up with rising volumes. Also, while SPX may have briefly overtaken J&T Express in parcel volume, margins remain tight and SPX has yet to prove that it can win outside of Shopee's terrain as it looks to offer its logistics services to more companies. Meanwhile, TikTok Shop remains a formidable force with its tight partnership with J&T Express and deep-pocketed investment in the region. 'TikTok Shop's emergence was a concern for Shopee because they have the capital backing from ByteDance to take market share,' said Maybank's Saifee. 'Shopee's retention of its market share is linked to SPX Express, as well as increasing the assortment on their platform and bringing down prices by working together with sellers.' But it's clear that Shopee has become part of the social fabric in Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, SPX collection points operate out of warungs — small family shops that double as pickup depots. In Taiwan, they've been installed in convenience stores and shops filled with Shopee lockers. In Brazil, where Shopee has also expanded, the network is growing too. John, the retiree, has witnessed first hand how fast Shopee has expanded and isn't worried about the competition. The number of packages he delivers has tripled in four years. He knows his neighbors' unit numbers by heart and sometimes slips the package behind their shoe rack if they're not home. 'I just take things in my stride,' said John, hurrying off with two Ikea bags full of parcels. This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
Business Times
21-07-2025
- Business
- Business Times
Maybank initiates coverage on Sheng Siong with ‘buy' call on DFI sale of Singapore supermarkets
[SINGAPORE] Maybank has initiated coverage on supermarket operator Sheng Siong, assigning it a 'buy' call and a target price of S$2.30. This represents a premium of 10.6 per cent over its last closing price of S$2.08 on Friday and implies a price-to-earnings ratio of 23 times for 2025 and 21 times for 2026. In a report on Sunday (Jun 20), Maybank analyst Hussaini Saifee wrote: 'Rival DFI Retail Group's S$125 million sale to Malaysia's Macrovalue signals a retreat from Singapore's supermarket space and, in our view, creates a market share opportunity for Sheng Siong.' Jardine Matheson-owned DFI had in March announced the sale of its Singapore food business, including 48 Cold Storage and 41 Giant stores, to the Malaysian conglomerate. Sheng Siong's revenue could log a 6 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) on the back of industry growth of 4 per cent and market share gains from its competitor's restructuring, Saifee wrote. The group's net profit after tax is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 8 per cent, which is 'highly defensible' and places it in the upper-tier of domestic names and regional peers, he added. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up Market share opportunity on DFI retreat The ongoing restructuring of Sheng Siong's competitors, amid Macrovalue's takeover of DFI's Cold Storage and Giant stores, presents an opportunity for 'medium-term growth in market share', Saifee wrote. 'In the past three years, Sheng Siong has gained 2.7 percentage points in revenue share and could benefit further if Macrovalue prioritises Cold Storage over Giant due to capital constraints,' he wrote. Giant's focus on the mass market segment would mean that its ongoing rationalisation would likely benefit Sheng Siong, which targets a similar customer base, he added. 'Our mapping shows a 68 per cent chance of Sheng Siong gaining over NTUC from potential Giant closures,' Saifee said. This comes as Sheng Siong remains focused on expansion, with the group opening six to 10 stores over 2024 and 2025, he said. 'We expect Sheng Siong to add five to six new stores in 2026 to 2027, partially helped by (Giant's) rationalisation.' Limited leakage from e-grocery competition Saifee noted that leakage from competition posed by online grocers should be 'limited'. He noted that Singapore's e-grocery market is already mature (with) 80 per cent of residents already (shopping) online, limiting further structural shifts. Moreover, offline groceries have been predicted to grow at a CAGR of 3 per cent for 2024 to 2029, matching gross domestic product, he said. 'The city's compact layout supports in-person shopping. Sheng Siong's prices are 10 per cent to 21 per cent lower than e-grocers, and its fresh offerings, live seafood, and long hours drive footfall.' Additionally, food trends such as consumers cutting back on delivery due to higher costs should support the stable growth of supermarkets, he said.
