Growing adoption of business messaging across APAC: Study

Business messaging to digitise and scale online presence has become integral to both businesses and consumers as it continues to gain traction in Asia Pacific and is further accelerated by the pandemic, according to a study by Meta and Boston Consulting Group.

Why it matters

Business messaging adoption is gaining traction beyond small businesses, with large businesses now recognising messaging as a critical component of their business model – 70% of large businesses rate messaging as very or extremely important to their overall business.

Key insights

• 40% of people surveyed are messaging with a business more frequently than compared to the pre-pandemic period.
• One in three consumers is now chatting with businesses at least once a week.
• The trend is similar across all age groups, especially millennials and Gen Z who are messaging businesses up to 8 times monthly.
• 90% of businesses recognise that messaging apps are important for success.
• 80% of consumers plan to continue using messaging to interact with businesses.
• Across APAC, consumers said it was important for them to message a business before they signed up for a financial product.
• More than half of businesses said that they use business messaging for after-sales services.
• 61% of retail and e-commerce businesses use messaging to process pre-sales enquiries.
• An average of 50% of businesses said they use messaging to process orders and transactions.

Quote

“The COVID-19 pandemic forced countries around the world to go into lockdowns, enforce strict social distancing rules and restrict in-person business operations. This resulted in more people going online and businesses across many industries to increase their investment and engagement on online channels to connect with customers” – Tarandeep Singh, managing director, Boston Consulting Group.

Background

The Business messaging: The quiet channel revolution across tech study surveyed 6,500 respondents across Australia, Indonesia, Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.