SE Asia’s digital economy on course to hit $200bn GMV this year

Despite economic headwinds, Southeast Asia’s digital economy is forecast to hit $200 billion GMV this year, a 20% year-over-year growth and three years earlier than expected, according to the latest report released by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company.

The seventh edition of the e-Conomy SEA report shares an update on how digital economy sectors are tracking across six countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The report deep dives into trends and insights of the five mainstay digital sectors – e-commerce, travel, food and transport, online media, and digital financial services (DFS) – and covers the state and outlook of SEA’s technology funding landscape.

Out of SEA’s 460 million internet users, 100 million have come online in the past 3 years. After years of acceleration, digital adoption growth is normalising. The majority of digital players are now shifting priorities from new customer acquisition to deeper engagement with existing customers to increase usage and value.

E-commerce adoption is high across both urban and suburban consumers while services offered by the remaining sectors are mainly used by people living in urban areas. Suburban adoption of sectors such as groceries, travel and music-on-demand remains nascent and offers headroom for growth.

Double-digit growth is also seen across all digital finance services (DFS) sub-sectors, which include payments, remittance lending, investment, and insurance, due to enduring offline to online behaviour shifts post-pandemic.

Digibanks are gaining traction amongst young digital natives while high net worth and affluent customers remain loyal to established financial services providers given their existing deposit balances and multiple investments.

The report also noted that tech funding maintains strong momentum despite investors’ prudent disposition.

“With a 13% growth in deal value from H1 2021 to H1 2022, technology funding remains robust and Southeast Asia continues to be a hotbed for tech investments, despite investors becoming more cautious in the current macroeconomic environment,” according to the report.

In Singapore, the digital economy is expected to grow by 22% to reach $18 billion this year, with the potential
to reach approximately $30 billion in 2025. This GMV growth will be driven by e-commerce – the largest digital sector that is expected to hit $11 billion in 2025 – a $9 billion recovery in online travel; and high digital
adoption in e-commerce (97%) and food delivery (92%).