As of June 30, VNG's ownership in Tiki has fallen to 24.4 percent from 28.8 percent at the beginning of the year, according to the Vietnamese gaming firm’s latest semi-annual financial report.

Having made two investments in the first half of the year, JD.com, China’s second-biggest e-commerce firm behind Alibaba, has raised its stake in Tiki to 25.65 percent.

JD.com has not disclosed how much it has newly invested in Tiki to become its largest shareholder.

VNG had been the biggest shareholder in Tiki after buying a 38 percent stake in the company in May 2016, in return for investing $17 million in the then startup. 

However, Tiki reported losses totaling VND380 billion ($16.42 million) in 2016 and 2017. As the e-commerce market heated up with increasing competition from Lazada and Shopee, Tiki decided to receive a $44 million investment from JD.com for an undisclosed stake.

JD.com’s stake in Tiki was revealed at 22 percent in January 2018, when VNG invested an additional VND120 billion ($5.19 million) to maintain its majority shareholder status at 28.8 percent.

However, the very same month, JD.com followed up with another undisclosed investment. JD.com had told Reuters then that it had become Tiki’s largest shareholders alongside VNG following the deal.

Tiki, founded in 2010 in Ho Chi Minh City, started with selling books online, then expanded its business to include a wide variety of consumer products.

The online marketplace was the second most visited in Vietnam in the first half of 2019, with 33.7 million web visits per month, behind Singapore-based Shopee which had 38.6 million.