2026.06.11
TikTok Shop, which has grown rapidly as e-commerce born from a video app, has come within striking distance of market leader Shopee in Vietnam. Seven years after entering the country, the company has invested a cumulative total of about USD 5 billion, and its annual GMV (gross merchandise value) now stands at about USD 10 billion, with its share of the four major platforms exceeding 40%. At a meeting with Ministry of Finance officials, the company also announced the launch of a payment service, "TikTok Payment," aimed at 45 million buyers, along with plans to incorporate a local subsidiary at the Ho Chi Minh City International Financial Center (IFC). This marks a shift in the center of gravity of its business, moving beyond logistics into payments and finance.
The combined 2025 GMV of Vietnam's major e-commerce platforms (Shopee, TikTok Shop, Lazada, Tiki) grew to about USD 16.5 billion (VND 429.7 trillion). Of this, Shopee holds more than 56% and TikTok Shop more than 40%, together accounting for 97% of the total. The combined share of Lazada and Tiki has shrunk to about 3%. TikTok Shop has pushed its share from around 24% in 2023 up into the 40% range in just two years, closing in on Shopee at a pace unusual for a late entrant.
The momentum is clear even on a quarterly basis. In Q1 2025, TikTok Shop's sales grew 113.8% year on year, more than doubling, far outpacing Shopee's 29.3% growth. A design built around video and live streaming, creating a "watch it, buy it on the spot" experience, is winning support especially among younger users.
TikTok has invested a cumulative total of about USD 5 billion in the seven years since entering Vietnam. It processes about 3 billion orders a year and issues 2-3 billion electronic invoices annually. It has about 500,000 advertisers, about 500,000 businesses operating on TikTok Shop, and about 6 million content creators. Its contributions to the national budget have exceeded VND 4 trillion (about USD 152 million). It is becoming less a platform and more a piece of Vietnam's transactional economic infrastructure.
What stands out in this announcement is TikTok's first move into payments and finance. TikTok laid out plans to build a payment service, "TikTok Payment," for its 45 million users. Alongside this, it is shifting from a cross-border model to a local-entity model, setting up a subsidiary within the Ho Chi Minh City International Financial Center. On the logistics side, it is also exploring obtaining a license for a logistics service capable of processing 1-2 billion items a year. Deputy Minister of Finance Cao Anh Tuan said of TikTok that it is "not just a place for connecting and creating content, but also a presence that supports merchants' product promotion."
| Item | Value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Annual GMV | About USD 10 billion (about JPY 1.5 trillion) | At JPY 150 to the dollar |
| E-commerce share (among the four major platforms) | Over 40% | Shopee holds more than 56% |
| Cumulative Investment | About USD 5 billion (about JPY 750 billion) | 7 years since entry |
| Buyers | About 45 million | Target of the payment service |
| Sellers / advertisers | About 500,000 each | — |
| Annual orders | About 3 billion | — |
First, government authorities view TikTok's move to incorporate locally and its approach to tax payment positively. As tax and data governance issues around cross-border e-commerce intensify globally, building a local-entity receiving structure is also easier for regulators to work with.
Second, rival Shopee has partnered with Meta to push forward affiliate integration that lets people buy without leaving a Facebook post, countering TikTok in social-media-driven purchasing. The fight for leadership on the stage of video and social media is itself changing how sellers approach promotion.
Third, in the payments space, existing local fintechs such as MoMo have a head start. TikTok's entry, backed by a user base of 45 million, could redraw the map of wallet competition.
For Japanese companies handling consumer goods and food, designing a sales channel for Vietnamese e-commerce has moved past the stage of "Shopee or TikTok" and into "how to use both properly." Shopee, where search-driven comparison shopping is common, and TikTok Shop, which generates impulse purchases through video and live streaming, call for different optimal approaches to presentation and pricing. In the period when Vietnam's e-commerce sales surged 47% in Q1, live commerce made an especially large contribution in the beauty and food categories.
If TikTok Payment gets on track, a "closed economic zone" will strengthen, in which everything from payments to promotional data is completed within TikTok. It's worth considering running one's own website or a channel like LINE in parallel, so that the platform doesn't hold too much control over fees and data.
TikTok has already laid out a plan to invest USD 125 million in Ho Chi Minh City, setting up three companies for logistics, payments, and e-commerce at the international financial center. This "TikTok Payment" announcement is the point where that groundwork has taken concrete shape in finance as well. Amid local fintech MoMo moving toward a pre-IPO capital restructuring, the picture in which whoever controls payments controls commerce as a whole is becoming even clearer. In rural areas, TikTok Shop is rolling out an e-commerce model across 3,000 villages, and a strategy of securing urban payments and rural sales channels at the same time is coming into view.
TikTok Shop is closing in on Shopee with about USD 10 billion in annual GMV and a share of more than 40%, and is making its first move into finance with the payment service "TikTok Payment." Combined with a logistics license and local incorporation, it is positioning itself to enclose the whole chain from content to purchase to payment. Japanese companies selling products in the Vietnamese market have entered a phase where they need to design their sales channels with an eye on the balance between platform dependence and control over their own data.
Sign up for the latest updates from SoJapan here: Contact
MORE
Jollibee sells Highlands' parent company shares for 2.3 trillion dong, founder side to hold 51%Four Vietnam-built offshore substations head to Poland, totaling 16,000 tons built simultaneouslyCentral invests a new 3.5 billion dollars in Vietnam, shifting store focus to tier 3 and 4 citiesGolden Gate, with about 600 restaurants, starts up its second food plant in Phu Tho ProvinceSojitz acquires a 27.64% stake in Vietnamese airport services firm Taseco AirsSaeki Selva, with 56 stores in Japan, starts with workforce training for its 100-store push into VietnamSOJAPAN
We support Japanese companies entering India, from market research through local partner development, test sales, and import.