Southeast Asia’s growing e-commerce sector is projected to be worth USD70 billion by 2020, but market players are finding it hard to penetrate the region due to logistical and payment infrastructure constraints, according to a joint report by Google and management consulting firm Bain & Co.
“The growth of the Southeast Asian e-commerce market is slow but significant, particularly when you consider that it started from a very small base in 2012 and has doubled every year since,” Sebastien Lamy, a Bain partner and coauthor of the report, said in a statement yesterday.
The report, titled “Can Southeast Asia Live Up to Its E-commerce Potential,” surveyed over 6,000 Southeast Asian consumers across the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
Bain said online sales in Southeast Asia could hit USD70 billion by 2020, which may seem small in comparison to China — now a more than USD500 billion market.
(Source: Business World Online )