Connect with us

Published

on

Lazada is the third-largest e-commerce player in Indonesia, after Sea Limited’s Shopee and Tokopedia, according to Momentum Works.

Matt Hunt | Lightrocket | Getty Images

SINGAPORE — Alibaba-owned Lazada began its latest round of layoffs on Wednesday, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told CNBC, following a slew of media reports about cuts at the Southeast Asian e-commerce giant.

Employees across all Southeast Asia markets from all levels are affected, according to the person who declined to be named due to the sensitive nature of the subject. Those affected could be “in the hundreds,” with Singapore the most impacted, said the person.

Lazada’s Singapore spokesperson did not confirm that staff were being laid off, but told CNBC on Wednesday: “We are making proactive adjustments to transform our workforce, to better position ourselves for a more agile, streamlined way of working to meet future business needs.”

“This transformation necessitates that we reassess our workforce requirements and operational structure to ensure Lazada is better positioned to future-proof our business and people,” the company added.

Lazada operates across Southeast Asia countries namely Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

According to CNBC’s source, all functions including commercial, retail and marketing will be affected by the layoffs, which the person said are happening this week. Some employees have received meeting invites from the company but have yet to obtain any details, they said.

Lazada became a subsidiary of Alibaba Group after the Chinese tech giant acquired control of it in 2016. The company operates under Alibaba International Digital Commerce Group, which also includes AliExpress, Trendyol and Daraz.

Rising competition

The e-commerce company is facing stiff competition from rivals such as Sea Limited‘s Shopee and TikTok Shop in the region. TikTok is a short video app owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance.

In December, Indonesia’s tech giant GoTo and TikTok announced a partnership where Tokopedia and TikTok Shop Indonesia’s businesses will be combined into an enlarged Tokopedia entity. GoTo is a merger between Indonesia’s ride-hailing giant Gojek and the country’s e-commerce platform Tokopedia.

As part of the deal, TikTok will take a controlling stake of 75.01% and invest $1.5 billion into the entity over time.

The deal came after Indonesia banned e-commerce on social media platforms in October to protect local merchants, forcing TikTok to halt its e-commerce service TikTok Shop.

Lazada’s leadership team has seen many changes in the past years.

In June 2022, Lazada Group CEO Chun Li was replaced by James Dong, who was chief executive of Lazada Thailand and Vietnam.

In 2020, Li took over the role from Pierre Poignant, who succeeded Lucy Peng in December 2018, just nine months after taking up the reins.

2023 was a tumultuous year for its parent company Alibaba, which scrapped plans to spin off its cloud business and went through a management shake-up.

— CNBC’s Naman Tandon and Lauren Choo contributed to this report.

Continue Reading

Technology

Amazon launches fixed pricing for treatment of conditions such as hair loss. Hims & Hers stock drops 15%

Published

on

By

Amazon launches fixed pricing for treatment of conditions such as hair loss. Hims & Hers stock drops 15%

A worker delivers Amazon packages in San Francisco on Oct. 24, 2024.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Amazon on Thursday announced Prime members can access new fixed pricing for treatment of conditions like erectile dysfunction and men’s hair loss, its latest effort to compete with other direct-to-consumer marketplaces such as Hims & Hers Health and Ro.

Shares of Hims & Hers fell as much as 17% on Thursday, on pace for its worst day.

Amazon said in a blog post that Prime members can see the cost of a telehealth visit and their desired treatment before they decide to proceed with care for five common issues. Patients can access treatment for anti-aging skin care starting at $10 a month; motion sickness for $2 per use; erectile dysfunction at $19 a month; eyelash growth at $43 a month, and men’s hair loss for $16 a month by using Amazon’s savings benefit Prime Rx at checkout.

Amazon acquired primary care provider One Medical for roughly $3.9 billion in July 2022, and Thursday’s announcement builds on its existing pay-per-visit telehealth offering. Video visits through the service cost $49, and messaging visits cost $29 where available. Users can get treatment for more than 30 common conditions, including sinus infection and pink eye.

Medications filled through Amazon Pharmacy are eligible for discounted pricing and will be delivered to patients’ doors in standard Amazon packaging. Prime members will pay for the consultation and medication, but there are no additional fees, the blog post said.

Amazon has been trying to break into the lucrative health-care sector for years. The company launched its own online pharmacy in 2020 following its acquisition of PillPack in 2018. Amazon introduced, and later shuttered, a telehealth service called Amazon Care, as well as a line of health and wellness devices.

The company has also discontinued a secretive effort to develop an at-home fertility tracker, CNBC reported Wednesday.

— CNBC’s Annie Palmer contributed to this report.

Continue Reading

Technology

WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning says censorship is still ‘a dominant threat’

Published

on

By

WikiLeaks whistleblower Chelsea Manning says censorship is still 'a dominant threat'

Chelsea Manning: Censorship still a dominant threat

Former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning says censorship is still “a dominant threat,” advocating for a more decentralized internet to help better protect individuals online.

Her comments come amid ongoing tension linked to online safety rules, with some tech executives recently seeking to push back over content moderation concerns.

Speaking to CNBC’s Karen Tso at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon, Portugal, on Wednesday, Manning said that one way to ensure online privacy could be “decentralized identification,” which gives individuals the ability to control their own data.

“Censorship is a dominant threat. I think that it is a question of who’s doing the censoring, and what the purpose is — and also censorship in the 21st century is more about whether or not you’re boosted through like an algorithm, and how the fine-tuning of that seems to work,” Manning said.

“I think that social media and the monopolies of social media have sort of gotten us used to the fact that certain things that drive engagement will be attractive,” she added.

“One of the ways that we can sort of countervail that is to go back to the more decentralized and distribute the internet of the early ’90s, but make that available to more people.”

Nym Technologies Chief Security Officer Chelsea Manning at a press conference held with Nym Technologies CEO Harry Halpin in the Media Village to present NymVPN during the second day of Web Summit on November 13, 2024 in Lisbon, Portugal. 

Horacio Villalobos | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Asked how tech companies could make money in such a scenario, Manning said there would have to be “a better social contract” put in place to determine how information is shared and accessed.

“One of the things about distributed or decentralized identification is that through encryption you’re able to sort of check the box yourself, instead of having to depend on the company to provide you with a check box or an accept here, you’re making that decision from a technical perspective,” Manning said.

‘No longer secrecy versus transparency’

Manning, who works as a security consultant at Nym Technologies, a company that specializes in online privacy and security, was convicted of espionage and other charges at a court-martial in 2013 for leaking a trove of secret military files to online media publisher WikiLeaks.

She was sentenced to 35 years in prison, but was later released in 2017, when former U.S. President Barack Obama commuted her sentence.

Asked to what extent the environment has changed for whistleblowers today, Manning said, “We’re at an interesting time because information is everywhere. We have more information than ever.”

She added, “Countries and governments no longer seem to invest the same amount of time and effort in hiding information and keeping secrets. What countries seem to be doing now is they seem to be spending more time and energy spreading misinformation and disinformation.”

Manning said the challenge for whistleblowers now is to sort through the information to understand what is verifiable and authentic.

“It’s no longer secrecy versus transparency,” she added.

Continue Reading

Technology

SoftBank-backed fintech Zopa aims to double profit this year as it eyes 2025 current account launch

Published

on

By

SoftBank-backed fintech Zopa aims to double profit this year as it eyes 2025 current account launch

Jaidev Janardana, CEO of U.K. digital bank Zopa.

Zopa

LISBON, Portugal — British online lender Zopa is on track to double profits and increase annual revenue by more than a third this year amid bumper demand for its banking services, the company’s CEO told CNBC.

Zopa posted revenues of £222 million ($281.7 million) in 2023 and is expecting to cross the £300 million revenue milestone this year — that would mark a 35% annual jump.

The 2024 estimates are based on unaudited internal figures.

The firm also says it is on track to increase pre-tax profits twofold in 2024, after hitting £15.8 million last year.

Zopa, a regulated bank that is backed by Japanese giant SoftBank, has plans to venture into the world of current accounts next year as it looks to focus more on new products.

The company currently offers credit cards, personal loans and savings accounts that it offers through a mobile app — similar to other digital banks such as Monzo and Revolut which don’t operate physical branches.

“The business is doing really well. In 2024, we’ve hit or exceeded the plans across all metrics,” CEO Jaidev Janardana told CNBC in an interview Wednesday.

He said the strong performance is coming off the back of gradually improving sentiment in the U.K. economy, where Zopa operates exclusively.

Commenting on Britain’s macroeconomic conditions, Janardana said, “While it has been a rough few years, in terms of consumers, they have continued to feel the pain slightly less this year than last year.”

The market is “still tight,” he noted, adding that fintech offerings such as Zopa’s — which typically provide higher savings rates than high-street banks — become “more important” during such times.

“The proposition has become more relevant, and while it’s tight for customers, we have had to be much more constrained in terms of who we can lend to,” he said, adding that Zopa has still been able to grow despite that.

A big priority for the business going forward is product, Janardana said. The firm is developing a current account product which would allow users to spend and manage their money more easily, in a similar fashion to mainstream banking providers like HSBC and Barclays, as well as fintech upstarts such as Monzo.

What leaders are saying about AI at one of Europe's biggest tech shows

“We believe that there is more that the consumer can have in the current account space,” Janardana said. “We expect that we will launch our current account with the general public sometime next year.”

Janardana said consumers can expect a “slick” experience from Zopa’s current account offering, including the ability to view and manage multiple account bank accounts from one interface and access to competitive savings rates.

IPO ‘not top of mind’

Continue Reading

Trending