Battle Of The Lifestyle Giants: Oh!some Vs Moshi Moshi

Phnom Penh’s struggling retail scene just got a shot in the arm with the opening of Oh!some’s new flagship at Aeon 3 mall in Mean Chey, just south of the city centre.

The store, which now headlines the first floor of the capital’s glitziest mall, is the first in Cambodia for the Singapore lifestyle retailer, which now also has branches in Malaysia and Indonesia. Its store fleet now numbers more than 90 in all.

The Phnom Penh unit is sprawling, covering approximately 1000sqm and offering a beautiful range of items across 15 categories. The formula is simple: take functional everyday items, redesign them imaginatively with eye-catching colour, texture and packaging, price them accessibly, showcase them with immaculate visual merchandising and make the shopping experience fun, and watch the customers come in droves. To keep them coming back again and again, you maintain a steady pace of new product development that continually freshens up the merchandise mix.

In just about every way, Oh!some looks strikingly like an amped up version of the popular Thai mall retailer Moshi Moshi. The product categories are similar: plush toys, health and beauty products, stationery, developmental toys, personal accessories, bags, action figures, snacks, beverages, digital accessories, home decor and more. Some of the products are Disney- licensed but there are a whole slew of imported brands.

Competition intensifying in Southeast Asia

The success of retailers like Oh!some and Moshi Moshi is inevitably leading to intensifying competition in the segment as these retailers expand their footprints. It doesn’t take long before they start locking horns.

So far, Oh!some has stayed away from Thailand where the appeal of the concept would be formidable. Moshi Moshi is currently the category growth retailer in Thailand and is edging closer to saturating the high-quality mall locations. It has 158 locations in 59 provinces and the Bangkok metro and now from a quality standpoint, its ideal target locations are getting a bit threadbare. There are already signs that it is having to look at secondary locations, such as freestanding stores in the neighbourhood of university campuses.

As things get tighter in Thailand, it is starting to cast its eye overseas and some of its juiciest prospects are on the same turf as Oh!some’s. Moshi Moshi’s 2025 expansion plan includes 40 new stores that would bring its store fleet up to about 200 by the end of 2025. It hasn’t named specifically the countries it is eying outside Thailand but so striking is the similarity between it and Oh!some it will be very interesting to see if they can peacefully coexist in the same places.

Both target the younger customer (tweens, teens and college students), both have similar product ranges with a special knack for incorporating beautiful design in very mundane functional objects, they have similar visual merchandising, sharp pricing and a vibrant store ambience. Both are big on new product introductions.

Oh!some at Mean Chey has an eye for the future

Aeon Mean Chey is an interesting choice for a launch in Phnom Penh: it is one of the capital’s newest superregional malls and arguably the best in terms of design and impact. Mean Chey is located in a developing commercial and residential area that is still in its infancy and the centre has struggled since the beginning with a vacancy problem despite its world-class quality. The more established Aeon 1, in the city centre, is where most new global retailer launches occur in Phnom Penh.

Gechpor Kim, an analyst with CBRE in Phnom Penh, said that despite its teething problems and the fact that some retailers have already relocated elsewhere, the vacancy situation in Mean Chey is improving with Oh!some’s arrival the latest example. 

In many instances, global retailers have been opening in Phnom Penh more with an eye for the future than for the present, but Gechpor Kim said some have been doing a brisk business already: “H&M, Adidas, Miniso, Skechers, The Face Shop, Zara, and 7-Eleven, have performed strongly, proving that demand for international retail remains robust. Additionally, we are witnessing an influx of Chinese retailers, including popular brands like Haidilao Hotpot, BYD, Tan Yu, and Shu Daxia Hotpot, which are expanding their presence in the market and adding diversity to the retail landscape.” 

Still, she continued, “The key challenge lies in the fact that Cambodia’s middle class is still developing its purchasing power and consumer habits, which are essential for meeting the expectations of international brands. As a result, while globally recognised brands have successfully captured a niche segment of consumers, the broader market may not be as large as these brands initially anticipated.” 

Certainly, for Aeon Mean Chey, area purchasing power still lags the Phnom Penh city centre and that is what makes Oh!some’s choice such an interesting gamble. Its low price points help.

Phnom Penh 2025: is the time right for market entry?

In sports, there are years when young players who have been performing at an ordinary level suddenly find their groove and become stars. We call those breakout years. In the retail economy, there are breakout years too, and Phnom Penh will have them but not quite yet according to CBRE’s outlook for 2025. While occupancy in the big enclosed malls has remained aloft of 70 per cent, average occupancy across the city has continued to fall and now hardly exceeds 60 per cent because of significant struggles at retail podiums and community malls. The vacancy situation has caused landlords to offer deep rental discounts and marketing assistance to attract and maintain tenants. 

CBRE’s 2025 Fearless Forecast, presented by CBRE Cambodia chairman Marc Townsend at a function at the Novotel Phnom Penh in mid-January, suggests that there is no short-term trigger for rental recovery.

For retailers thinking about entering the Phnom Penh market, rental rates are currently very attractive so long as the expectations of sales volumes are modest for the short-term. However, this might be a great time to swoop on a good real estate position and get brand awareness with an eye for future success.

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