Online shopping boom in SEA sparks demand for customer data

Bangkok

WHEN diaper-maker DSG International (Thailand) wants to know what its customers are thinking, it often turns to Lazada, an e-commerce firm majority-owned by Alibaba Group Holding.

"From its data, we know mothers sometimes browse at night, so we can offer flash sales when we know customers are browsing," says Ambrose Chan, the Thai company's CEO.

South-east Asia is the world's fastest-growing Internet market, home to 600 million consumers from Vietnam to Indonesia via Singapore, many of them tech- and social media-savvy. They are rapidly spending more time and money online.

A Nielsen study in 2015 estimated South-east Asia's middle-class will hit 400 million by 2020, doubling from 2012. Gross merchandise value of e-commerce in South-east …