KPPU’s conclusion on Blibli.com’s acquisition of Tiket.com.

KPPU has completed its assessment of the acquisition of PT Globalnet Sejahtera by PT Global Digital Niaga in December 2018. The transaction was carried out between two applications in e-commerce, namely Blibli.com and Tiket.com.

PT Global Digital Niaga is a company that conducts activities in the field of e-commerce services, specifically covering trade activities of goods and/or services through electronic network media, internet, telephone, television or other electronic media. One of the company’s products is Blibli.com.

Meanwhile, PT Globalnet Sejahtera is engaged in trading, and has sales in Indonesia through its subsidiary, PT Global Tiket Network (GTN). PT Global Tiket Network conducts online travel service activities, namely transportation ticket sales (airplane, train), concert tickets, and hotel and car rental bookings based online, with the name of Tiket.com.

The acquisition is done for diversification of product, because PT Global Digital Niaga as part of PT Global Digital Prima (GDP) is a shareholder of several online businesses such as the Kaskus site, Lintasberita.com which is now Beritagar.id, dailysocial.net, and the Merah Putih Inc.

KPPU considers several relevant market categories in digital economy, namely market place, online retail, banking, classified ads, daily deals, infrastructure, transportation, logistics, online directory, payment gateway, and online travel. In the assessment, KPPU concluded that the relevant market in the acquisition of shares of the company PT Golbalnet Sejahtera by PT Global Digital Niaga is an electronic sales service (e-commerce) specifically in the online ticketing services for trains, planes and hotels in all regions of Indonesia.

In order to analyze the acquisition that is in one relevant market, the first stage is to evaluate market concentration through the Hirschman Herfindahl Index (HHI). HHI is calculated to cross-check the number and market share of all companies in the market. Based on calculations, the market concentration is quite high, reaching 5,691 before the acquisition. This can be caused by the dominant position by other applications, namely Traveloka.com, which controls most of the market. In the post-transaction calculation, the change in HHI from the transaction only reached 30.8. Noting that the HHI value is above 1800 and the change in HHI value before and after the acquisition does not exceed 150, the Commission considers that the market share of both companies after the acquisition transaction does not raise concerns about potential monopolistic practices or unfair business competition.

Furthermore, KPPU also considers other factors in the analysis, namely the potential for entry barriers and the opinions of other related parties. From the assessment, KPPU concluded that in addition to the two companies in transactions, there are a variety of online platform options that provide train, airplane and hotel booking services that can provide alternatives to online platforms owned by the two business actors who conduct the transactions. Based on input from various parties, it was identified that with the merging there will be no entry barriers for other business actors who wanted to establish companies with similar business, so that the potential for the emergence of new competitors would remain in the market.

Taking into account the mentioned considerations, KPPU concluded that the acquisition of PT Globalnet Sejahtera by PT Global Digital Niaga did not raise concerns about future business competition. As the market concentration in the market is high, KPPU also put the implementation of this transaction as part of its monitoring activity.

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