Southeast Asia’s internet economy exceeds $240b

Southeast Asia’s internet economy is expected to exceed $240 billion by 2025, a joint study by Google and Temasek Holdings showed.

The internet economy will be fifth more than previously estimated, as more consumers use their smartphones to go online.

The study, first published in 2016, encompasses ride-hailing, e-commerce, online travels and online media.

The latest report released on Monday adds new sectors such as online food delivery, as well as subscriptions to music and videos.

It estimated that the Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) of the region’s internet economy reached 72 billion dollars in 2018,
rising 37 per cent from the year earlier.

The GMV of e-commerce in the region will exceed 23 billion dollars in 2018, the report said, and rise more than four times to
exceed 100 billion dollars by 2025, helped by increased consumer trust.

It credited e-commerce companies – Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s Lazada, Sea Ltd’s Shopee, and Indonesia’s Tokopedia – for
helping to develop the sector.

The report estimated that the GMV of the competitive ride hailing sector, with the addition of online food delivery, reached
7.7 billion dollars in 2018.

“Powered by the ambitions of Go-Jek and Grab to become Southeast Asia’s ‘everyday apps’, we project that ride hailing
will reach almost 30 billion dollars by 2025,” the Google-Temasek study said.

Both Alphabet Inc’s Google and Singapore state investor Temasek have invested in Go-Jek. Temasek-backed Vertex Ventures
is an early investor in Grab.

The Indonesian internet economy is forecast to grow to 100 billion dollars by 2025, accounting for four dollars of every 10 dollars
spent in the region, the report said.

It added that 2018 was on track to be a record year for fundraising for the region’s internet economy companies, with 9.1 billion dollars
raised in the first half of the year, nearly as much as in all of 2017.

The research covers Southeast Asia’s six largest economies – Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The growth is being boosted by the world’s most engaged internet users, of whom more than 90 per cent connect to the web
through their smartphones, it said.

The report said the increasing availability of affordable smartphones and the roll-out of faster and more reliable mobile telecommunication services were supporting Southeast Asia’s growing internet user base