Rocket's Lazada gets US$100 mln in bid to be Southeast Asia's Amazon

EMERGING FORCE: Online commerce site Lazada hopes the extra funding will enable it to promote AND expand e-commerce in the South-east Asian region.

Lazada, the South-east Asian online retail company founded by Germany's Rocket Internet Gmbh, has secured another US$100mil (RM320mil) from investors in its bid to lift the region from its status as an e-commerce backwater.

While online shopping is big in Europe, the United States and even in China, where it is likely to account for 6 percent of all retail business this year, South-east Asians still prefer to do 99% of their shopping offline, the company estimates.