SINGAPORE: Southeast Asian e-commerce firm Lazada, a unit of Alibaba Group Holding, on Friday (Jun 26) named its third chief executive in three years, as it battles for dominance in the fast-growing market.
Chun Li, Lazada co-president and head of its Indonesia operations, will take the helm from July, replacing co-founder Pierre Poignant, the company said in a statement.
Advertisement Advertisement Lazada has struggled to fend off rivals such as the Singapore-headquartered SEA Group's e-commerce arm Shopee, which is backed by Alibaba rival Tencent, for control of the fast-growing market of 650 million consumers.
The firm said Li would work to improve "Lazada's competitive advantage through data technology application and business localisation", and Lazada had seen "healthy growth" under Poignant.
Lazada said it had more than 70 million users in the year to the end of March.
The firm said Li would work to improve "Lazada's competitive advantage through data technology application and business localisation", and Lazada had seen "healthy growth" under Poignant.
Advertisement Advertisement "We introduce change to strengthen our leadership in support of our business strategy", the spokesman said.
Poignant himself replaced Lucy Peng who stepped down as CEO after nine months in 2018 although she remains executive chairwoman. Lazada said Poignant will now become special assistant to Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang.
Alibaba owns 90 per cent of Lazada after investing US$3 billion since 2016.
E-commerce in Southeast Asia was worth US$38 billion last year and is expected to grow rapidly, according to a study by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company.
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