Southeast Asia enters its digital decade on booming internet economy: Report | WARC | The Feed

Southeast Asia enters its digital decade on booming internet economy: Report

Southeast Asia (SEA) is on the path to become a $1 trillion digital economy by 2030, with the region estimated to reach $174 billion in Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) by the end of 2021, according to the e-Conomy SEA Report 2021.

Why it matters

Southeast Asia is entering its “digital decade” as the internet increasingly becomes an integral part of consumers’ daily lives, with the region propelled by a fast-growing base of digital consumers and merchants, acceleration in e-commerce and food delivery.

Key insights

• The region’s internet economy is projected to reach $360 billion by 2025, an upward revision from the previous $300 billion forecast.
• SEA now has more than 440 million internet users – with 60 million new digital consumers added since the pandemic began and 20 million of them added in H1 2021.
• Funding hit an all-time high with $11.5 billion invested during the first half of 2021, with 11 consumer technology unicorns added in 2021, taking the total to 23.
• One in three SEA small and medium enterprises, or digital merchants, believed that they would not have survived the pandemic without going online.

Quote

"The phenomenal growth we see in Southeast Asia reinforces our view that the region will define the future of global digital ecosystems” – Stephanie Davis, vice-president, Google Southeast Asia.

Background

Roaring 20’s: The SEA Digital Decade, from Google, Temasek and Bain & Co, analyses the internet economy in the region, covering Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and dives into trends across five leading  sectors ‒ e-commerce, online media, transport and food, online travel, and digital financial services – and two nascent sectors,  healthtech and edtech.

Sourced from Google, Temasek, Bain & Co