KOTA KINABALU: Online shopping company Lazada is the most searched e-commerce brand in 2017 in Malaysia.

This is according to the findings of meta-search website iPrice in its "E-Commerce Rewind 2017” year-end review. The review analyzed Malaysia's top e-commerce on Google Trends, App Store and Facebook.

iPrice found that Lazada further increased its market lead and garnered a 62.9 percent increase in search interest for its brand this year compared with 2016.

"Apart from the fact that Alibaba holds the majority stake in Lazada, the e-commerce marketplace was the key winner in all vital e-commerce sale events, especially the ones initiated by the Chinese giant such as the 12.12 sale and the 11.11 sale (Singles Day).

"In its latest announcement, Lazada wrapped up its month-long sale campaign with US$250 million (RM1.02 billion) in gross merchandise value (GMV), shattering its previous record of US$123 million in GMV garnered during Single's Day" said iPrice in the review report.

Its findings also showed that Shopee, which is the fastest growing and youngest e-commerce player in the market, is now the closest competitor to Lazada.

The customer-to-customer (C2C) platform began the year in 5th place and is now ahead of more experienced e-commerce sites such as Zalora, Lelong and 11street.

"According to Google Trends, Shopee first took second place on July 2017 and they further cemented their first runner-up position when parent company Sea (formally known as Garena) filed for US$1 billion initial public offering in the United States in September 2017.

"In addition to this, Shopee gained five times more search interest in 2017 when compared to 2016, winning the hearts of Malaysian consumers and becoming a serious competitor to Lazada's market-leading position.”

Missing from this year's top five e-commerce is GemFive which closed its website and mobile apps in September 2017, said iPrice.

"There was no official announcement from GemFive on their closing but the e-commerce went through significant downsizing early 2017 and probably lost the backing of its operator, Guoline eMarketing.”

The study also stated Lazada was the overall highest ranked mobile shopping application of 2017. For more information, please visit iPrice Trends Insight