TikTok Shop is closing in on Shopee: half-year traffic increased by 15.7%!

On the Southeast Asian e-commerce battlefield in 2026, a significant reshuffling of ranks is unfolding. According to the latest data from June 2026, the combined average monthly visits of TikTok Shop across six countries—Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore—have reached approximately 438.9 million, a 15.7% increase from six months earlier.

This growth rate is particularly striking in the already red-hot Southeast Asian market. More notably, this volume is equivalent to 85.9% of Shopee's total visits in the six countries, and about 6.1 times that of Lazada.

Now, TikTok Shop is no longer just a 'traffic-attracting supporting role' that depends on traditional shelf-based e-commerce. Instead, it has leveraged the momentum of content traffic to penetrate the core of transactions.

Source: Google

Regional Offense and Defense: Near Hand-to-Hand Combat in Key Markets

Breaking down data by country, TikTok Shop's offensive shows distinct regional breakthrough characteristics.

In Indonesia, its visits gap with Shopee has narrowed to just 0.4%, while in Vietnam it is 3.4%. This near-zero-distance struggle in these two key markets means that Shopee's traditional strongholds are facing the most direct traffic diversion.

Meanwhile, in Malaysia, TikTok Shop has overtaken Shopee by approximately 2.4% in visits. The 29.1% growth in Indonesia and 31.8% growth in Vietnam over the past six months highlight the explosive power of content e-commerce in markets with young demographics and high mobile internet penetration.

This shift from multi-point blooming to single-point closing has made Shopee's moat no longer unbreachable. When the traffic base is re-divided by content logic, shopping paths that rely solely on search and category navigation are revealing deficiencies in interaction depth.

Source: Google

Growth Engine Shift: Structural Evolution Behind Doubling GMV

Traffic growth ultimately leads to a qualitative change in transaction scale. Full-year data for 2025 provides broader evidence: total GMV of Southeast Asian e-commerce platforms reached $157.6 billion, with TikTok Shop's contribution surging from $22.6 billion to $45.6 billion, nearly doubling.

This growth rate far exceeds the industry average, driven by the fact that content e-commerce, centered on short videos and livestreaming, has risen to account for 32% of total transactions.

This means that for every three dollars spent in Southeast Asian e-commerce, nearly one dollar is generated by passive demand stimulated by content. Content e-commerce is evolving from early interest seeding to one of the infrastructure pillars of transactions.

Facing this structural change, Shopee has not stood idly by. It has significantly increased investment in livestreaming tools and affiliate marketing systems, attempting to counteract traffic leakage with a follow-up strategy. However, judging by the continued narrowing of the visits gap, the defender's catch-up speed has so far failed to curb the attacker's inertial growth.

Source: Google

Seller Strategy Overhaul: Moving Beyond the Traffic Myth and Calculating Comprehensive Costs

Amid the shifting landscape, cross-border sellers are the ones needing to adjust their pace the most. While TikTok Shop's traffic dividend is tempting, blindly copying the traditional shelf e-commerce playbook of listing, advertising, and chasing hit products can easily trap sellers in a scenario of higher volume but not higher profits. Traffic does not equal conversion, and certainly not profit.

In TikTok Shop's content ecosystem, sellers need to break free from the mindset of simply tracking PV and UV, and instead build a more refined cost accounting model around the complete content e-commerce chain.

Influencer commissions, short video advertising costs, livestream venue and labor expenses, cross-border logistics and warehousing costs, and the increasingly regulated local tax costs in various Southeast Asian countries—when these variables are combined, the comprehensive profit margin may differ significantly from the apparent GMV. Especially as the platform enters a rapid expansion phase, advertising bidding costs will rise. Sellers should focus on the marginal profit per order rather than total sales.

It is recommended that sellers treat TikTok Shop as an independent profit center for assessment, rather than a supplementary channel for clearing inventory or building brand presence. When selecting products, prioritize SKUs with high visual appeal, strong explanatory attributes, and suitability for content presentation. Meanwhile, use the data analysis tools of affiliate marketing to filter out a stable portfolio of influencers with reliable ROI, avoiding blind scaling.

Source: Google

Conclusion

From a supplementary channel to a core echelon, TikTok Shop's rise in Southeast Asia is an undeniable fact. The 15.7% growth in visits over six months is a powerful testament to the effectiveness of the content e-commerce model.

But the close battle with Shopee will not be decided in the short term; instead, it will drive the entire ecosystem to evolve in a more efficient and diversified direction. 2026 is destined to be a watershed year.

For sellers, rather than waiting for the landscape to become clear, it is better to actively calibrate their own positioning. Put profit quality above GMV scale, and find your own growth space in the differentiated gaps among the three major platforms.