POLITICA

Qoo10 Takes over WeMakePrice, Changing Korean e-Commerce Landscape

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The Korean e-commerce market is facing another big change. With Coupang’s dominance solidifying with its quarterly surplus, Qoo10, which owns Tmon and Interpark Commerce, took over WeMakePrice, reorganizing the Korean e-commerce market.

According to sources in the Korean e-commerce industry on April 6, Qoo10, a Singapore-based e-commerce platform company, acquired all of the shares (86.2 percent) from Winder Holdings, the largest shareholder of WeMakePrice, on April 5 and took control of WeMakePrice. Qoo10 acquired Tmon last year and Interpark Commerce (excluding the tour and ticket business divisions) last month.

As a result, when shares of WeMakePrice, Tmon, and Interpark Commerce are combined, Qoo10’s market share will rise to 10 percent based on their shares in 2020. In terms of arithmetic calculation, it ranks fourth after Naver (17 percent), Gmarket and SSG.com (15 percent), and Coupang (13 percent). However, some point out that these industry rankings will change if their performances over the last one to two years are reflected.

Qoo10 is an e-commerce company established in Singapore in 2010 by CEO Koo Young-bae, the founder of Gmarket. It is doing business in 24 countries including Europe and the Americas, and is based in Southeast Asia. QXpress, a logistics affiliate of Qoo10, has logistics bases in 19 regions in 11 countries. One of Qoo10’s strengths is that it can provide its own logistics services. Qoo10 believes that WeMakePrice and Tmon will be able to expand their business areas to cross-border shopping markets through Qoo10’s global logistics network.

Insiders of the Korean e-commerce industry are showing rather calm reactions to the reorganization of the e-commerce market centered on Qoo10. This is because it is not a big deal that will shock the market like Coupang’s listing on the U.S. stock market or E-Mart’s acquisition of eBay Korea, which ran Gmarket and Auction.

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