Lazada receives approximately US$250 million of funding from Tesco, Access Industries, Kinnevik and Verlinvest

Close cooperation between multichannel retail giant and leading online general merchandise pure player set to transform the Southeast Asian retail ecosystem

Singapore, 9/12/2013 –  Lazada,  Southeast Asia’s largest online shopping mall, raises a large funding round from a group of investors including  Tesco PLC,  Access Industries,  Investment AB Kinnevik and Verlinvest,  which adds approximately US$250 million of cash to Lazada’s balance sheet.

This marks the first investment by multichannel retailer Tesco into a pure online player in the region and is the starting point of close cooperation between the parties. Synergies of this partnership will span across customer analytics, private label development and supply chain management.

Maximilian Bittner, CEO of Lazada Group, said: “We are delighted to welcome Tesco and Access to join our investor group through this funding round. That the investment is also joined by Kinnevik and Verlinvest – which know our business and operations extremely well – demonstrates that we are making great progress in building a large and sustainable company in Southeast Asia. We are excited to continue this journey together with our investors.”

“Lazada’s management team has put the company on a path to become the premier online shopping destination in Southeast Asia. We are pleased to be part of this dynamic success story,” said Jörg Mohaupt from Access Industries, in a statement.

“Strategic cooperation between long-term financial investors and industry partners can add significant growth momentum and enhanced profitability to e-commerce businesses. We welcome Tesco’s investment in Lazada and look forward to working with them in supporting Maximilian and his team,” said Mia Brunell Livfors, CEO of Kinnevik.

Robin Terrell, Group Multichannel Director of Tesco, said: “This investment in South East Asia’s largest e-commerce retailer continues our strategy of developing leading multichannel businesses in core growth markets. Lazada is an exciting, pioneering business which has developed a market-leading offer in each of its five markets in just 18 months. As South East Asia’s 600 million consumers begin to use smartphone technology to access retailers online, Lazada has established a strong position from which to grow."

Lazada is a pioneer in Southeast Asian e-commerce with around 1,500 employees across five Southeast Asian countries. Since launch Lazada has become the leading online general merchandiser across the region. As key pillars of Lazada’s long-term strategy, the company has opened up its platform with great success to third party merchants to increase assortment and allowing both large and small suppliers take advantage of Lazada’s traffic volumes, continued building its category mix by expanding into fashion, and developed an affiliate program that will help the region’s broader web community to flourish by providing web portal and blog owners an opportunity to monetize their website.

As another key cornerstone of the Group’s strategy, Lazada also launched Lamido in Indonesia and Vietnam, to tap into the large informal e-commerce market of C2C transactions which includes thousands of shops on social networks such as Facebook.

Samsung and Tesco Collaborate in Redefining Retail Experience with Samsung World

Partnership brings Samsung World shop-in-shop concept retail experience for Malaysian hypermarkets
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, 3 October 2012 – Samsung Malaysia Electronics, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, has partnered Tesco, one of the world’s largest retailers, to introduce Samsung World shop-in-shop (SIS) concept retail experience to a hypermarket, bringing Samsung products even closer to consumers.

Aptly named Samsung World, the industry-changing partnership culminated in a launch event held at Tesco Extra Mutiara Damansara, which was recently refurbished to offer a whole new shopping experience to customers. The strategic collaboration with Tesco Stores (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. entails a designated area within Tesco Extra stores that features Samsung’s latest range of innovative products – a holistic experience of Samsung’s state-of-the-art technology and a closer encounter with the company’s range of smart solutions.

REDEFINED RETAIL EXPERIENCE: Equipped with a wholesome product line-up and trained representatives for assistance, Samsung World is set to redefine consumers’ shopping experiences.

Aimed at providing patrons of Tesco Extra with a different retail experience and a better understanding of Samsung’s range of smart living solutions, Samsung’s trained product experts will also be assigned at Samsung World, facilitating consumers and providing insights on the latest Samsung innovations, ranging from audio-visual products, mobile phones, digital appliances, digital imaging devices and IT products.

“In addition to designing and manufacturing state-of-the-art products to provide better solutions to consumers’ daily routines, Samsung is also committed in ensuring our customers receive the best user experiences, be it after they have purchased the products or at retail level. We are honoured and excited to partner Tesco in providing a brand new retail experience through Samsung World, which will help customers better understand Samsung products and how they can enhance users’ lives,” said Kwon Jae Hoon, Managing Director of Samsung Malaysia Electronics.

IT’S OFFICIAL: Kwon Jae Hoon (left), Managing Director, Samsung Malaysia Electronics and SungHwan Do, Chief Executive Officer, Tesco Stores (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd, officially launching the strategic partnership between two of the leaders in their respective industries.

“I am pleased that we are able to launch Samsung World as brand new shop-in-shop concept at our stores, with better range and better deals for our customers. Shopping for electronics at Tesco is even more rewarding for customers as they can earn Tesco Clubcard points with their purchase,” said SungHwan Do, CEO of Tesco Stores Malaysia Sdn. Bhd.

“The dedicated space which we call Samsung World offers everything our customers would need in terms of electronics for home, office or own personal use. We are also pleased to inform you that ever since we launched our first Samsung World earlier this year, we have seen very promising year-on-year sales increase of over 100%,” Do added.

Samsung World was first introduced into local Tesco stores in March 2012, beginning with Tesco Kepong. Subsequently, the retail experience was introduced to patrons of Tesco Puchong and Penang, offering a wide array of Samsung’s latest electronic appliances. Samsung and Tesco will also be launching another Samsung World at Tesco Ampang, which is the retailer’s flagship store in Malaysia.

TESCO Invests RM1.5 Million in SAS Solution

Hypermart makes technological investment to gain marketing advantage with business intelligence (BI)
Left to Right : Paul Morris, Marketing Director of Tesco Stores(Malaysia) & Jimmy Cheah, MD of SAS Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR, 23 April 2008 - Tesco Stores (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, a joint venture with Sime Darby Berhad today announces that it is investing RM1.5 million over a three (3) year period to deploy SAS Business Intelligence (BI) technology into its business operations - with key focus to boost the hypermart’s marketing functionality.

Tesco Stores (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, incepted on 29 November 2001, sealed its partnership with SAS Malaysia at a closed-door signing ceremony at SAS’ office at Plaza Sentral, Kuala Lumpur.

The investment in SAS is in tandem with the strategy to improve Tesco’s market share in the competitive hypermart sector, where Tesco is targeting to open 11 new stores in 2008.

Paul Morris, the Marketing Director of Tesco Stores (Malaysia) explains that the key objective of leveraging SAS solution is to understand customers better and to provide a reporting and analytical solution that centralizes all customer, sales and transaction data.

“Tesco Malaysia has a mountain of data that it can’t analyze quick enough to support the store’s business decisions. The decision to go with SAS is in line with the Tesco Group Scale program as SAS collaboration with Tesco Korea and Tesco UK has also generated proven results. We have no doubts on picking SAS as the technology solution to support Tesco Malaysia’s fast expanding business.”

He shares that with SAS, Tesco expects to drastically reduce its time and effort needed to garner the relevant reports, following from the Tesco ClubCard initiative which was officially launched in August 2007.

For Richer Customer Experience

“Quicker analysis of the data will allow us to understand our customers’ better than any of our competitors - in order to offer them a more tailored shopping experience at each of our outlets.”

“Using SAS, Tesco will be able to glean the right information to gain predictive insights that will be extremely beneficial for our marketing team to improve the shopping trip for customers, particularly trade planning, price and range,” says Morris.

Jimmy Cheah, Managing Director of SAS Malaysia says, “The SAS solution in question will help Tesco hasten its process to make crucial operational decisions, and directly contribute to increased revenues by providing the right information to target the right customer through the right channels.

The SAS BI Server for Marketing Analysis and Reporting will provide Tesco with deeper insight into its products and customers via analysis on sales categories, customers, promotions and buying behavior that can help enable it continue to enhance the level of customer satisfaction and spur further growth.

“Armed with the technology that gives them the power to know, Tesco will be able to grab a bigger piece of pie from the hypermart sector while at the same time reducing their direct marketing costs,” ends Cheah.