Amazon's Prime Now launch in Singapore likely to ruffle Alibaba's feathers

AMAZON's Prime Now, the company's signature-free two-hour delivery service, is now available in Singapore, marking the e-commerce giant's entry into Southeast Asia

Singapore is home-turf for Amazon's major rival, Alibaba, which indirectly owns Redmart, Singapore's largest online supermarket, through its Lazada subsidiary. This is the first time that the two have gone head-to-head in this sector in Asia, reported New York's Air Cargo World.



Both major e-commerce companies face a highly segmented market as they blow through billions of dollars in the e-commerce arms race for a potential regional market of 600 million people that could reach US$70 billion in value.



Singapore is small, with excellent infrastructure - the per capita GDP is US$81,443 at purchasing power parity - so offering two-hour deliveries shouldn't be a challenge.



"We are pleased that Amazon has chosen to launch a new operating model with Amazon Prime Now in Singapore," assistant managing director of the Singapore Economic Development Board, Kiren Kumar, was quoted as saying. "With Prime Now, Amazon will also play a key role in training and equipping our local ecosystem and workforce with cross-disciplinary digital capabilities."



Since launching in December 2014 in New York, Prime Now has expanded to 50 cities in nine countries.