Etaily Opens 150-Studio Livestreaming Tower as Live Commerce Reaches a Quarter of Philippine Online Sales

MANILA, Philippines. October 21, 2026 — Etaily today opened a 150-studio Livestreaming Tower in Poblacion, bringing its total to 150 studios. The facility can run up to 150 concurrent live sessions and 20000 broadcast hours per month for brands selling on TikTok Shop, Shopee and Lazada. Etaily repurposed a former hotel into a dedicated livestreaming hub, converting its existing guest rooms into multiple livestreaming studios across each floor. The building’s original layout allowed for a fast and efficient transformation into a large-scale livestreaming facility. 

The investment follows a sharp shift in how Filipinos buy online. Video commerce — shoppable short videos and livestreams, now accounts for 25% of Philippine e-commerce gross merchandise value (GMV), after growing roughly fivefold in three years, according to the e-Conomy SEA 2025 report by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company.

• A US$36 billion digital economy. The Philippine digital economy is projected to reach US$36 billion in GMV in 2025, up 16% year on year. E-commerce makes up more than 60% of it. (e-Conomy SEA 2025)

• Video commerce is mainstream. 475,000 Philippine sellers now use video commerce, up 90% in a year, generating 1.2 billion transactions (+35%). Fashion, accessories, beauty and personal care account for half of video commerce GMV. (e-Conomy SEA 2025)

• Sellers are seeing results. TikTok Shop reports that sales by local sellers on its platform rose more than 200% in 2025. (TikTok Shop, January 2026)

• The audience is already there. The Philippines has 95.8 million social media users — 81.9% of the population — who spend an average of 33 hours and 50 minutes a week on social platforms. Filipinos now spend about as much time daily on TikTok (1 hr 30 min) as on Facebook (1 hr 31 min). (Digital 2026 Philippines, We Are Social / Meltwater)

• Trust in creators is high. 45% of Filipino social media users follow influencers, roughly double the 22% global average. (Meltwater, Digital 2026)

• More growth ahead. Philippine e-commerce is expected to double by 2030. (Bain & Company, e-Conomy SEA 2025)

Most brands that want to sell live hit the same limits: no studio space, too few trained hosts, and no way to run sessions on several platforms at once. The Tower is built to remove those constraints.

• Concurrent capacity: 150 sound-treated studios allow brands to stream on TikTok Shop, Shopee and Lazada at the same time, across peak sales events such as 9.9, 10.10, 11.11 and 12.12.

• Always-on selling: Brands can move from campaign-only streams to daily schedules of up to 24 hours.

• Category fit: 80 studios are set up for beauty, personal care and fashion — the categories that drive half of Philippine video commerce GMV — with dedicated setups for electronics FMCG and multi-category channels.

• One team, one report: Hosts, producers, moderators and analysts work under one roof, with sales, conversion and viewer data reported per session and per platform.

Results to date: 2026 YTD average GMV grew by 522% vs. the 2025 average, driven primarily by always-on livestream brands, which contributed 85% of total GMV. Livestream also proved to be a key sales channel, accounting for an average of 40% of these brands’ total platform sales.

The Tower employs 160 people, including 150 livestream hosts and 10 production staff, with plans to reach 200 by 2028.

“Live commerce is a fundamental part of how consumers discover products and make purchasing decisions,” said Alexander Friedhoff, Founder and CEO of Etaily. “With 150 studios, we are taking an important step toward establishing the Philippines as a regional powerhouse for this industry.”

Jester San Rafael, General Manger of Etaily Social Commerce Division: “Brands no longer ask whether to go live — they ask how to do it every day, on every platform. This facility lets us say yes to that at volume which is ahead of us.”

Etaily studied how live commerce runs across Asia's leading markets such as China, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam. The conclusion was clear: brands need a strong combination of AI-hosted and real-time livestreaming — but the two do not perform equally. In Etaily's own data, real-time livestreams with human hosts convert around four times better than AI-hosted streams.

That makes the host the deciding factor, and host reliability the foundation of the business. Etaily's model puts its hosts at the center:

• Dedicated studios: Every host works from a dedicated livestreaming room, not a shared set.

• Faster commissions: Hosts receive their commissions earlier than the market standard.

• Reliability: Fixed schedules and a stable working environment mean sessions run as planned. 100% of scheduled sessions delivered and 400% host retention.

Etaily operates in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. The company plans to use the Manila Tower to produce livestreams for brands in the Philippines, drawing on Philippine hosting and production talent.

“The Philippines' advantage is in its talent pool, creativity, and market dynamics. In a couple of quarters we will become a major hub for live commerce in Southeast Asia,” Friedhoff said.

Etaily Group is a media-commerce technology company that runs media, social commerce and e-commerce for consumer brands across Asia, end to end. Its services cover marketplace management, social commerce, livestreaming, affiliate marketing, performance media and data analytics, across Shopee, Lazada, TikTok Shop, brand-owned websites. The company is also building a portfolio of consumer brands, in FMCG, Lifestyle and Groceries.

Etaily works with more than 150 brands and has 150 staff across 3 offices in the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. The company operates 150 livestreaming studios in Metro Manila. Etaily's growth is backed by a range of prominent investors, including Japan's Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) through its SMBC Asia Rising Fund; Malaysia's Vynn Capital; Ayala Corporation, Southeast Asia's oldest conglomerate; the Gokongwei Group; Landmark's Cheng family; and the Po family behind Century Pacific Food Corporation. Other investors include Seviora Capital, part of Temasek; the Magsaysay family and Foxmont Capital.