Indonesian Most Promising Market Online Shopping in Southeast Asia

Indonesian Most Promising Market Online Shopping in Southeast Asia

It is based on an estimated 125 million people who use the Internet at the end of 2015, an increase from 55 million in 2012, coupled with the increasingly prosperous middle class.

JAKARTA

Indonesia is poised to lead the explosion of online shopping or online throughout Southeast Asia due to the increase in Internet access and flow of investor money to the Internet retail companies are growing rapidly, according to analysts.

As China a few years ago, the Southeast Asian region enjoyed a rapid increase in Internet access that analysts began to encourage a fundamental shift in shopping habits among the growing middle class.

According to a recent report from investment bank UBS, online commerce business-to-consumer in Southeast Asia will be increased at least fivefold by 2020, and could reach US $ 35 billion per year.

The report cites the strong growth in Thailand and the Philippines but said Indonesia, the largest economy in the region, is the most promising market despite the current online sales are still mediocre and Internet penetration is still low.

This expectation is based on estimates of their rapid increase of Internet users, according to consultancy Redwing there will be an estimated 125 million people who use the Internet at the end of 2015, from 55 million in 2012, coupled with the increasingly prosperous middle class.

"There is a huge opportunity," said Daniel Tumiwa, head of the association of Internet commerce (e-commerce) in Indonesia, in a startup conference or a new Internet-based company, in Jakarta.

"The middle class is the driving force that is very, very, very big."

Star e-commerce in Indonesia is Tokopedia, the market that allows users to create an online store and organize transactions. In October, the site has received an investment of $ 100 million from Softbank Japan and the US firm Sequoia Capital.

It is the largest startup investment in Indonesia to date and the first of these countries by Sequoia, a capital company from Silicon Valley who have become investors early success stories like WhatsApp and Apple.

A number of online stores are also popular, such as Kaskus, OLX and Lazada. At the end of last week Lazada get fresh funds $ 250 million of investment giant Singapore, Temasek. (AFP)./VOA