Amazon is secretly hiring and building up its capabilities in Singapore, TechCrunch reports on Nov. 2.

The US retail giant is expected to launch selected services in Singapore within the first quarter of 2017, a source close to the company said.

This would include its Prime delivery service and AmazonFresh grocery service, sounding another death knell for brick-and-mortar shopping malls.

Earlier in 2016, Amazon offered to acquire Redmart, a grocery delivery startup in Singapore backed by Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

But the bid was deemed too low and rejected.

On the same day that news of Amazon's entry into Singapore was reported today, news broke that Redmart has been acquired by Lazada, the e-commerce firm that Alibaba invested US$1 billion in earlier this year.

After being rebuffed, it was also reported in TechCrunch that despite contact from Redmart, Amazon declined to reenter acquisition talks.

Now, it is much clearer why: Amazon is going at it on its own and taking on Alibaba and its proxy, Lazada.

Amazon's entry into Singapore's market is part of its plan to enter Southeast Asia, home to 600 million consumers.

Rival Alibaba has stepped into the region via investments in Lazada, delivery firm SingPost, and payments company Ascend Money.

At the moment, Singaporeans would be keeping their fingers crossed, hoping that Amazon would not end up like Newegg, a popular US-based computer component online store known for its low prices.

This is so as after branching out into Singapore, Newegg offered prices that are nowhere better than those found in Sim Lim Square.

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