Recently, the development of Tiktok's e-commerce business in Southeast Asia has been frequently blocked。It is understood that after the Indonesian Ministry of Trade announced the ban on TikTok's e-commerce business on September 27, the Malaysian government is currently considering whether it needs to follow up on the ban, and also ban e-commerce transactions on TikTok in the territory.。

On October 11, local time, Malaysia's Minister of Communications and Digital Fahmi Fadzil said that several large stores have filed complaints about the price of products offered on the TikTok platform, and major retailers have also expressed concerns about pricing competition for products sold through the platform.。

The Malaysian government's concerns about TikTok are mainly reflected in two aspects。First, TikTok's pricing on the e-commerce platform is too low, which may harm the interests of local enterprises.。Second, TikTok's privacy protection for platform users is also one of the issues that platform users are more concerned about.。The Malaysian government hopes that TikTok can explain the above two issues, otherwise it will not rule out the possibility of following in the footsteps of Indonesia。

In fact, Malaysia's concerns coincide with Indonesia's previous thinking。

In Indonesia's "e-commerce ban" on TikTok, Regulation No. 31, the Indonesian government also clearly put forward two requirements: first, e-commerce and social media are completely separated - on social media, no content of merchandise sales and trading activities, in order to protect users' financial information on the basis of maintaining TikTok's native social attributes.。Second, set a purchase threshold for Indonesian e-commerce platforms - goods purchased directly from abroad will be set a minimum price of $100, and imported goods sold in Indonesia will need to meet the white list requirements - this is undoubtedly to protect local companies。

In addition to Indonesia and Malaysia, several Southeast Asian countries are also following up on the investigation of TikTok.。According to media reports, Vietnam has also completed a nearly five-month investigation of TikTok, which showed that TikTok violated a number of regulations involving e-commerce, and Vietnam requires TikTok to complete rectification within 30 days.。

TikTok regards Southeast Asia as a major commercial town, but has been hit by successive government initiatives, presumably not in his heart.。On June 15, TikTok CEO Zhou Shouzi publicly stated that TikTok will reinvest in the Southeast Asian market, investing more than $12 million in the region over the next three years to support more than 120,000 local merchants and businesses.。

Why TikTok is willing to spend money in Southeast Asia？The reason is that TikTok has a large user base in Southeast Asia.。Zhou has revealed that TikTok currently has more than 3 monthly users in Southeast Asia..2.5 billion, covering almost half the region's population。Third-party data shows that TikTok's GMV (total commodity transactions) in the Southeast Asian market has grown from $600 million in 2021 to $4.4 billion in 2022.。

In response to enquiries from Malaysia, TikTok told Fadzil that shortcomings in the development of the business had been noted, and that the reason for these troubles was TikTok's lack of a permanent representative in the country.。At the public level, TikTok's spokesperson has not yet responded to the incident.。