Dancing with Dragons: Southeast Asia’s Guide to Competing and Collaborating with Chinese Giants​

China-origin brands are accelerating into Southeast Asia with a speed and confidence that’s hard to ignore. What started as a trickle of cross-border experimentation has quickly become a coordinated push across categories—from electronics to beauty, from EVs to fashion. Backed by massive manufacturing scale, aggressive go-to-market playbooks, and online-commerce innovations, these companies are reshaping competitive dynamics across the region​

For the local incumbents and new entrants, there is an urgent need to understand the playbook being adopted by competition from abroad. ​

Local players can defend successfully by building structural advantages grounded in supply-chain reliability, omnichannel distribution, and cultural relevance – and all of which at an appropriate price point. ​

China-origin platforms are reshaping SEA’s digital consumption ecosystem​

The homogeneity of China-origin app penetration across multiple SEA countries suggests a shared regional appetite for China-based models and content. SEA’s digital markets are becoming “China-shaped” and “China-influenced.”​

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A 20%+ share of app installs is not just adoption; it means these platforms increasingly determine the UX norms in SEA (e.g., gamified shopping, short-video commerce, etc.). Local consumers are being conditioned to expect China-style product cycles, content formats, and engagement hooks.​

Even in goods and services consumption, the foothold is strong and growing ​

Behind the apps lies a hard reality — SEA’s import exposure to China is rising across all consumer categories. Be it heavy industries like automobiles, batteries, steel, critical minerals, to ecommerce to pure play consumer offline brands in F&B and retail. ​

SEA’s consumer base is China-enabled, not just digitally, but also physically through its supply chains​

Thus, SEA is turning into an important export market, impacting the local players​

As the competition heats up domestically in China and export restrictions in certain countries, it looks towards SEA. The influx of China-origin products is reshaping SEA’s supply base and pricing dynamics. China’s platform ecosystem advantage: Supply chain integration + recommendation algorithms trained on billions of behavioral data points enable fast local iteration unseen in local players.​

To build a moat, SEA players need to be ready for regional expansion with a strong local identity ​

China-origin brands are entering Southeast Asia with scale-driven pricing, fast innovation, and strong e-commerce execution. Local players can defend successfully by building structural advantages grounded in supply-chain reliability, omnichannel distribution, and cultural relevance. These five strategic levers—pricing, channel depth, regional expansion, localization, and product fit—create defensible moats that imported competitors struggle to replicate. Winning brands combine all five consistently, not selectively​

Wardah’s combination of cultural fit, trust, distribution, and innovation has kept it resilient against cross-border competition​

Wardah is one of Indonesia’s most prominent cosmetics brands. It pioneered Halal-certified beauty in the country and built a strong emotional connection with Indonesian Muslims through accessible pricing, skin-type–suitable formulations, and trust​