Vietnam takes the lead in ASEAN in online shopping

Revenue from e-commerce in ASEAN can grow 17.7% annually, from $11.2 billion in 2015 to $25.2 billion in 2020, according to a report by Frost & Sullivan, a US-based business consulting firm. 

"The fast popularity of digital devices in Southeast Asia will boost the growth of e-commerce in this region", said Cris Duy Tran, a leading consultant of the Asian - Pacific branch of Frost & Sullivan, said at a news conference. Frost & Sullivan studied six e-commerce markets in ASEAN, including Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. 

This firm predicted that Vietnam will grow at the fastest level to become the biggest e-commerce market in Southeast Asia in 2020. Southeast Asia still lags behind China in the growth of e-commerce due to a number of challenges, such as less development of infrastructure for transport activities and low proportion of people using credit cards.

The market share of e-commerce in total retail sales in Southeast Asia was less than 2.5%, compared to 12.1% in China. "We believe that Southeast Asia will follow a similar upward trajectory like China," the report predicts. However, many challenges remain. 

One of them is the low profitability. Foodpanda, an online food selling site of Germany-based Rocket Internet, stopped its operation in Vietnam in 2015. Groupon has left Thailand and the Philippines. The Frost & Sullivan report said that attractive opportunities are in specialized e-commerce. 

It mentioned firms Carousell in Singapore and Tokopedia in Indonesia – two electronic markets on mobile devices that allow consumers to deal with each other. These are two examples of the businesses that develop thanks to the strong strategy on mobile devices. 

"Currently no one really dominates the Southeast Asian market. Besides Alibaba, several Chinese e-commerce companies also want to enter this market," Tran said.