The Malaysian e-commerce market is set to grow 19.9 percent to reach MYR 38.2 billion (USD 9.2 billion) in 2022, on the back of the nation’s rapidly growing shift from offline to online purchasing, according to GlobalData.
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E-commerce sales in Malaysia will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.1 percent between 2022 and 2026, to hit USD 16.6 billion in 2026, according to data and analytics company. This projected figure follows registered online sales of USD 7.6 billion in 2021, growing at a CAGR of 22.4 percent between 2017 – 2021.
“Malaysia is among the fastest-growing ecommerce markets in Southeast Asia,” Ravi Sharma, lead banking and payments analyst at GlobalData.
“The growth is supported by the rapid adoption of smartphones, growing internet penetration, and the availability of secure online payment systems. The pandemic has brought a shift in consumer buying behaviour, pushing them towards online, a trend that is expected to continue.”
The GlobalData findings come after the opening of brick-and-mortar stores post-pandemic, with shoppers in the nation preferring to shop online still in 2022 and beyond.
According to GlobalData’s 2022 Financial Services Consumer Survey, some 90 percent of Malaysian consumers reported having shopped online in the past six months, while only less than 6 percent indicated that they never shopped online.
The government is also taking various initiatives to boost e-commerce sales in the country, including the ‘Go-eCommerce Onboarding campaign’ to encourage SMEs to go online, providing them with financial aid/subsidies. The campaign, which ran between
July to December 2021, onboarded over 500,000 businesses, out of which over 320,000 are new sellers on e-commerce platforms. Credit, charge, and debit cards together account for 26.7 percent of total e-commerce spending in Malaysia, the study also found, on the back of discounts, cashback, and promotional offers associated with these
cards.
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Meanwhile, alternative payment solutions such as ShopeePay, GrabPay and Boost are also growing in popularity, accounting for a 41 percent share collectively, the report concluded.