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Thursday, September 10, 2026

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@HaydenCapital

Fred Liu on X

On Applovin Ecommerce Ads $APP. (From Ecommerce Playbook podcast 3 weeks ago.) ** "So a couple things, number one: it turned out to be the third, the third largest investment out of all the channels that we, that we run for our clients over that period [Black Friday], which is wild. And that the new kid on the block popped up into the third spot... like bucked the trend. There’s no doubt in my mind that we’re going to see material, like orders of magnitude and investment into this channel for, for our clients in, in 2026 on Black Friday, Cyber Monday, the holiday. So my prediction, one last point on Black Friday: third largest investment channel, but still a relatively small portion of the whole for the weekend, a little less than 5%. So, but my prediction for this coming year in 2026 is that Applovin is going to be 15 percent, 20 percent of the total investment in Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And the indication, like the reason why, is because number one, we can deploy a lot of media dollars really fast because there’s so many impressions available, and number two, it’s performing. So the media dollars actually flowed into Applovin towards the end of that period, which is an incredible signal. So the AppLovin trend was peak, not peak on Friday, high levels on Friday, down a little bit on Monday, Tuesday, the peak was actually on Monday. I remember, you know, when this conversation first started with more than a year ago, October, right, 2024, the initial conversation was like what if this could be the third platform and some of our, as these sort of incrementality tests went through that sort of just seemed to be coming to fruition. And I would figure out like how am I going to make, if I was running an e-com brand, I would, I would say to myself, how am I going to, how am I going to make this 20% of my media investment this year? I was trying to explore in YouTube, my, my third bet would absolutely, absolutely be on AppLovin. I think what we’re saying here is like that’s happening basically is the Applovin ads is the third platform now. And so it’s time to get on." https://t.co/PBUOSe899T
@HaydenCapital

Fred Liu on X

Just hammering this home. For simplicity's sake, let's use round numbers for 2025: 1) J&T Order Volume Grows: 75% y/y 2) Tiktok & Other Customers Grows: 40% y/y 3) J&T Grows Market Share from 27% in 2024 > 33% in 2025 (disclosed in the 1H25 Report) 4) Non-platform % of revenue goes from 0% > 10% in 2025. All the data-points line up. Takeaway: It can be true that J&T grew 75% y/y, AND Tiktok is slowing to 40% y/y orders growth (and 30% y/y GMV). - Market narrative of Tiktok competition increasing is likely wrong. - Means that Shopee's recent spend is not a defensive move or coming from a weakened position. - In fact, they're pressing harder, while competition is weak (That's just how they operate. They waited to grow Monee loans, until the digibanks started blowing up. That's why you see an inflection in loan growth 2 years ago. Compare that to when Indo digibank NPLs started blowing up, and you'll see the correlation). Included pictures of the math (thanks ChatGPT). $SE $1519.HK
@HaydenCapital

Fred Liu on X

$SE is down -45% over the past few months. The prevailing bear case seems to hinge on two points: 1) Rising fear of TikTok Shop competition, and 2) Shopee reinvesting more heavily into logistics, capping margins at ~0.7% of GMV this year vs. prior expectations of ~1.2%. The concern is that this spend is defensive - a necessary response to TikTok rather than a choice. But alt data is telling a different story. TikTok Shop’s Southeast Asia GMV growth has slowed materially over the past few quarters - from 70%+ in 2Q25 to ~30%+ by late 2025. That’s only modestly above Shopee’s own growth rate. More notably, TikTok’s relative share vs. Shopee in Indonesia (~50% of regional GMV) has effectively flat-lined over the past year. If this data is directionally right, Shopee’s ~50 bps of reinvestment looks discretionary and offensive -widening the moat - rather than a defensive reaction to competitive pressure. And critically, that implies the margin compression is temporary, not structural. Oh, and both Shopee & Tiktok are raising take-rates. Not usually the sign of a competitor trying to aggressively take share... Curious, what am I missing? Is the -45% drawdown really just “2026 margins down > negative 2026 earnings revisions > stock down,” even if margins are likely to re-expand next year? And Shopee emerges with a wider moat after? The competitive backdrop looks like it’s improving, not deteriorating...

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