Expanding your brand across Southeast Asia

ASEAN's digital economy crossed $300 billion in GMV in 2025, and its top e-commerce platforms alone moved $157.6 billion — up 23% in a year. For brands with proven traction elsewhere, the question isn't whether to expand into Southeast Asia. It's which market to enter first, and what to fix before you do.

Southeast Asia looks like one opportunity from the outside. Up close, it's six markets, six languages, several regulatory regimes, and just three platforms — Shopee, Lazada and TikTok Shop — controlling almost the entire regional GMV. Brands that treat the region as a single launch typically stall in month three. Brands that sequence their entry, market by market, compound.

Indonesia is the scale play: the region's largest population and GMV base, and the market most brands lead with. Vietnam and the Philippines are the momentum markets, both posting 20%+ e-commerce growth on young, mobile-first populations. Thailand and Malaysia posted the fastest growth in the region in 2025 — 52% and 48% respectively — not because they're new, but because platforms there have shifted from land-grab expansion to sharper delivery and demand generation, which is exactly the environment a well-run brand thrives in. Singapore is the smallest market by volume and the highest-trust entry point, best suited to premium and B2B launches. Pick your first market on strategy, not familiarity.

Expanding into Southeast Asia touches brand, commerce and marketing all at once — localized visual identity, marketplace and payment integrations, and market-specific growth campaigns. At Glyde, we run market entry through the same framework we use for every build, so nothing launches disconnected from the next market you'll enter.