The Internet economy has the characteristics of sharing, interaction, fairness, timeliness, and spanning space. Therefore, the mutual influence and connection between economic entities and models are also closer. When studying the e-commerce market in a region, understanding its Internet economic development will help merchants make more accurate judgments on the e-commerce market space. Except for a few countries such as Singapore, the current infrastructure of most Southeast Asian countries is not yet complete, the level of informatization is not high, and the per capita education level is relatively backward. However, these countries are undergoing a major mobile Internet revolution. Emerging fields such as travel, mobile payment, e-commerce, and online media are affecting the Southeast Asian market in all aspects. Local Internet companies such as Sea, Lazada, and Grab have maintained a leap-forward expansion pace since their birth, and have continued to expand in various aspects. It plays the role of leader and changer in this growing market, reshaping the Internet cognitive concepts and consumption behaviors of Southeast Asian consumers.
The Southeast Asian e-commerce report jointly released by Google, Temasek, Bain & Company and other companies in 2019 shows that Southeast Asia is now the region with the fastest growing Internet economy in the world. At the same time, Southeast Asian countries also have the highest per capita online time in the world. For a long time, Southeast Asians spend an average of 3.6 hours a day on the mobile Internet, and 60% of Internet users have online shopping behavior.
The e-commerce market in Southeast Asia is expected to reach US$153 billion in 2025. At the same time, online travel, instant car rental, online video services, etc., which are important components of the Internet economy, are developing rapidly, which also shows a broader market potential for Chinese businesses. In addition to entering the Southeast Asian market through physical trade, Chinese merchants can also further explore the cross-border service market or drive the development of e-commerce through other Internet economic models such as online media.
From the perspective of Internet economic growth and its proportion in gross national product, Indonesia and Vietnam have the fastest Internet economic growth in the region. Chinese businesses can focus on Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. The growth rate is relatively fast and it is a stable development market. Although the Internet economy in the Philippines is growing faster than Thailand, it accounts for a relatively small proportion of the gross national product, indicating that the market needs to be further developed and has great potential.