M-commerce is taking over e-commerce market share in A.S.E.A.N. countries

Association of Southeast Asian Nations are increasingly using smartphones to shop and buy.

A recent study conducted on behalf of Visa has shown that consumers in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (A.S.E.A.N.) member countries are using m-commerce on an increasing basis for making purchases of products and services online.

Consumers in these countries are also using their mobile devices to make bill payments instead of using PCs.

The “2015 Regional eCommerce Monitor Survey for Asia-Pacific” from Visa determined that the A.S.E.A.N. countries are now using m-commerce at a rate that is 22 percent larger than it was last year. The report was based on an analysis of the results of a survey in which there were 11,760 participants. The respondents were between 15 and 55 years old and lived within any of 13 different Asia-Pacific countries, including the A.S.E.A.N. countries of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam.

The largest amount of growth in the use of m-commerce over the last year were in Indonesia, mainland China and Taiwan.

In Indonesia, 36 percent of respondents said that they were using mobile commerce, while 34 percent of those from mainland China were shopping over their smartphones and tablets. In Taiwan, that figure was not far behind at 28 percent.

The Visa Asia Pacific regional director for e-commerce, Conor Lynch, stated that “The results of the 2015 survey show that making purchases on-the-go through mobile devices is becoming the norm in the Asia-Pacific.” He also added that as the comfort level increases among consumers with regards to using mobile devices to learn more about products they’d like to purchase and to actually buy them, it won’t be long before mobile commerce overtakes traditional online shopping over desktops and laptops among retail stores.

In A.S.E.A.N. countries, there is a very powerful drive toward the use of m-commerce as there is considerable ease of access over mobile and there is a significant push in the real world to use smartphones for in response to advertisements. Many billboards, print and television ads encourage shoppers to interact with them by way of their devices. This, according to Sandy Shen the research director at Gartner.