Southeast Asia’s quick-commerce market is beginning to reach meaningful scale. According to Momentum Works’ Quick Commerce in Southeast Asia 2026 report, the sector generated an estimated US$7.3 billion in gross merchandise value in 2025, equivalent to 4.6% of the region’s ecommerce market. While it remains considerably smaller than conventional ecommerce and offline retail, rapid delivery is becoming an increasingly important part of how consumers purchase groceries and everyday essentials.
Southeast Asia’s model, however, differs from the dark-store-led approach that has expanded rapidly in India. Rather than relying entirely on purpose-built fulfilment facilities, regional companies are combining existing supermarkets, convenience stores, merchant networks and delivery fleets. This reflects Southeast Asia’s dense but fragmented retail landscape, varied urban geography and established food-delivery infrastructure.
Here are 6 Southeast Asian e-commerce infrastructure companies powering online retail
The result is not one uniform quick-commerce model. Pure-play operators, superapps, online grocers and established retailers are all approaching the opportunity differently. The following five companies illustrate how quick commerce is evolving across the region.
Astro
Indonesia-based Astro is one of Southeast Asia’s clearest examples of a pure-play quick-commerce business. Rather than using a broad marketplace of third-party retailers, it focuses on delivering groceries and everyday essentials through a dedicated fulfilment model designed around speed. This makes Astro structurally closer to the dark-store-led quick-commerce businesses seen in India than many of its regional competitors. Astro demonstrates how consumer expectations continue shifting towards convenience and immediacy.
Astro currently serves Jakarta, Depok, Tangerang and Bekasi, offering groceries, fresh produce, personal-care products and household essentials through its rapid-delivery service. Its dedicated fulfilment model distinguishes it from marketplace-based services that source orders from third-party retailers.
GrabMart
GrabMart has taken a different approach by building quick commerce on top of Grab’s existing delivery ecosystem. Rather than constructing a completely separate logistics network, Grab leverages its established fleet of delivery partners together with thousands of retail merchants across multiple Southeast Asian markets.
This model allows GrabMart to offer groceries, pharmacy products, household essentials, flowers, pet supplies and convenience items through an infrastructure already familiar to consumers. GrabMart also benefits from Grab’s established delivery network, merchant relationships and large base of consumers already using its superapp.
By integrating multiple services within a single superapp, Grab reduces friction for consumers while increasing utilisation across its logistics network. This approach demonstrates how platform ecosystems can create operational advantages that are difficult for standalone delivery businesses to replicate.
Pandamart
foodpanda’s pandamart is another significant player in Southeast Asia’s quick-commerce market. While Foodpanda initially focused on restaurant delivery, pandamart has expanded its offering to include groceries and everyday essentials through dedicated retail fulfilment facilities. The company continues investing in larger pandamart stores that can stock a variety of products, thus making it possible for customers to purchase more grocery items without slowing down the delivery process. This evolution reflects a changing consumer behaviour. Quick commerce is increasingly being used for planned shopping rather than emergency purchases alone.
By combining Foodpanda’s existing logistics infrastructure with specialised grocery operations, pandamart demonstrates how delivery companies can diversify beyond prepared meals into broader retail categories. As consumers become more comfortable purchasing everyday essentials online, this integrated approach continues expanding the addressable market for quick commerce.
RedMart
RedMart entered Singapore’s quick-commerce segment more directly in February 2026 with the launch of RedMart Now. The service offers grocery delivery in as little as 30 minutes in selected parts of the country, while RedMart’s main platform continues to support larger, scheduled grocery orders.
This two-speed model illustrates how quick commerce can complement rather than replace conventional online grocery shopping. Customers can use scheduled delivery for larger planned purchases and RedMart Now for smaller or more urgent orders. Operating within Lazada also gives RedMart access to an established ecommerce platform, digital payments infrastructure and an existing customer base.
Lotus’s
Thailand’s Lotus’s demonstrates how traditional retailers can become important players in quick commerce without abandoning their physical store networks. Instead of viewing ecommerce as competition, Lotus’s has increasingly transformed its stores into fulfilment hubs capable of serving both in-store shoppers and online customers.
Existing retail stores have inventory, logistics, workforce and geographic coverage. Utilisation of these resources for online fulfilment would not only help minimise the distance travelled but also optimise the inventory.
This model showcases the competitive advantage of Southeast Asia in this respect. In parts of Southeast Asia, established supermarket and convenience-store networks can reduce the need to build an entirely new network of dedicated dark stores.
Why Southeast Asia is building a different quick commerce model
Many Southeast Asian cities combine dense urban centres, sprawling suburbs, fragmented retail networks and varied transport infrastructure. Building thousands of dedicated dark stores across every city may not always be economically viable. Instead, companies are increasingly integrating supermarkets, convenience stores, neighbourhood retailers and existing delivery fleets into flexible fulfilment networks. This allows businesses to scale more efficiently while maintaining relatively lower infrastructure costs.
Consumers also display diverse shopping behaviours. While rapid deliveries remain attractive for forgotten groceries or urgent household purchases, many shoppers still prefer scheduled deliveries for larger weekly grocery orders. Supporting multiple fulfilment models therefore becomes commercially advantageous.
The future of quick commerce
As Southeast Asia’s US$7.3 billion quick commerce market continues expanding, future competition may depend less on delivery speed alone and more on operational efficiency, retailer partnerships and ecosystem integration. Companies capable of combining physical retail infrastructure, sophisticated logistics networks and seamless digital ordering are likely to enjoy stronger long-term advantages than businesses focused solely on ultra-fast delivery promises. Existing supermarkets, convenience stores and retail chains may increasingly become valuable fulfilment assets rather than obstacles to digital transformation.
Ultimately, Southeast Asia’s quick-commerce opportunity may not lie in replicating models developed elsewhere. Instead, the region is building a distinct approach in which physical stores, established retailers, delivery networks and ecommerce platforms operate together. As customer needs continue to evolve, the next phase of growth will depend not only on delivery speed but also on whether companies can integrate retail, logistics and technology into a reliable and commercially sustainable shopping experience.