Amazon to launch in Singapore this week

FILE PHOTO: Amazon boxes are seen stacked for delivery in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S. January 29, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo GLOBAL BUSINESS WEEK AHEAD SEARCH GLOBAL BUSINESS 24 JUL FOR ALL IMAGES

Global e-commerce giant Amazon is set to launch its services in Singapore, marking its entry into Southeast Asia.

According to popular tech site Techcrunch, the launch could happen as early as this week, based on the teasers posted on social media by the influencer community in the island republic.

Among the influencers include Jaime Teo, theramengirl, Charmaine Seah-Ong, and lifestyle portal superadrianme.com with the hashtag #dontsaybojio.

While there is no official Amazon branding present in the teasers, keen eyed users managed to spot the the distinctive blue tick, which is used by Amazon Prime Now.  

 

Who wants to play detective? (other than my cat ??) Received this scale patterned bag with a sticker that says #dontsaybojio - i thought there was gonna be a banana in it (because bojio = ???) but it was instead this interesting collection of things. I like surprises so maybe another clue / bag of somemore interesting things? ???? #wonderwho #fungift #manyinonesurprise #playdetective #sponsored A post shared by Jaime Teo (@jmeteo) on Jul 24, 2017 at 9:03pm PDT

The launch, according to the portal, will see services such as Amazon Prime, Amazon Prime Now fast delivery and Amazon’s e-commerce services made available to Singapore’s population, which numbers over five million people.

No details on pricing are available at the moment.

Amazon's move is timely as rival Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba has been rapidly expanding in Southeast Asia over the past year, led by major investments in Malaysia like the Digital Free Trade Zone, its first e-hub outside of China along with the availability of the Alipay digital wallet and Alibaba Cloud service.