From the latest FS e-commerce had around 600m in quarterly revenues and 1/4 of it is 1P and 3/4 is 3P (platform).
1P will never have high gross margin by definition. The positive here is that most of their merchandise is female oriented - clothes etc and this segment has higher margins compared to some other categories where Lazada is stronger - e.g. electronics which have lower gross margin by definition. But if their e-commerce will be dominated by 1P and not 3P the margins will be low even in mature state.
I haven’t seen their business plan on e-commerce 1P vs 3P, perhaps someone has more details on how they are planning to grow e-commerce aside from general comment that they will dominate e-commerce in SEA?
And agree that even 3p margins now are very low and I don’t have an answer on that.
And by the way, am I the only one who is somewhat frustrated with their earnings call, where only a corporate officer replies to the questions of analysts and neither CEO nor CFO do not do it? Seems unnatural and weird to me.