From January to July this year, South Korean consumers spent nearly 2.3 trillion won (about $1.67 billion) on Chinese e-commerce platforms AliExpress and Temu, according to app analysis service WISEAPP·Retail·Goods. The estimated expenditure on these apps and websites during this period was 2.2938 trillion won, almost matching last year’s total of 2.3227 trillion won within just seven months.
Since their launches in Korea—AliExpress in November 2018 and Temu in July last year—both platforms have been actively promoting themselves, particularly in the latter half of last year. Despite facing controversies such as exaggerated advertising, product safety concerns, personal information breaches, counterfeit products, and plagiarism of competitor images, they continue to attract a growing number of users with their ‘unbeatable low prices.’
Last month, the combined number of monthly active users (MAU) for AliExpress and Temu in South Korea reached 16.02 million, with 8.47 million for AliExpress and 7.55 million for Temu. This figure represents a 236% increase from the same period last year and a 24% rise from January, when the total was 12.88 million.
