Festive Shoppers in Southeast Asia Go Digital, Set to Spend More Online this Holiday Season: InMobi Report

This article first appeared on The Drum

Over 93% of consumers in Southeast Asia plan to leverage online channels for their shopping this year, with 24% planning to spend more online than in 2020.

InMobi, a leading provider of content, monetization, and marketing technologies that help businesses fuel growth, released today the findings of the “Decoding the Connected Southeast Asian Festive Shopper in 2021” report. It examines consumer shopping sentiment for the upcoming festive season in Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines, including their shopping plans, product categories of interest, shopping budgets, and journeys. InMobi surveyed over 6000 smartphone users using its consumer intelligence platform “Pulse” for this study.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted year-end shopping habits in Southeast Asia by causing reduced budgets and lingering concerns over transmission risk. This uncertainty has overwhelmingly caused shoppers in the region to turn to digital commerce; insights from the InMobi report reveal that over 93% of Southeast Asian consumers are planning to leverage online channels across their shopping journey this festive season, with 39% shopping online for the first time ever.

Respondents strongly favoured mobile in all aspects of their purchasing journey, from learning about a product (39%) and exploring product categories (71%) to making a purchase (69%). Some 24% of respondents declared that they would spend more on online shopping for the holiday season, while 47% planned to reduce their budget for in-person shopping. However, nearly 64% of consumers are still ‘undecided’ or are ‘completely unplanned’, giving brands the opportunity to capture this market.

“Despite a tough 2021, Southeast Asians are still gearing up for the year-end holiday shopping season, which has traditionally been the most active period for e-commerce sales in the region. More shoppers than ever are going online and spending more money online, most using their mobile phones to explore, discover and purchase. The time is right for brands and marketers to leverage mobile-first marketing to attract the interest of the connected festive shopper this year,” said Rishi Bedi, Vice President and GM, Southeast Asia, Japan & Korea, InMobi.

The report shares additional in-depth insights on consumer shopping preferences for the holiday season in Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines respectively, as well as shopping trends and recommendations on mobile-first marketing strategies. These include:

Three key buyer personas are emerging across Southeast Asian consumers for the holiday season: Bargain Hunters (64%), Category Explorers (26%), and Brand Lovers (10%)Clothing and accessories, groceries, gadgets, and home appliances emerged as the most in-demand product categories across the three countries some 51% of Indonesians planned to spend over IDR 500,000, one in five Singaporeans will spend more than SGD 1000, and the average Filipina family will spend PHP 7627 for the festive season.

“Since 2020, the consumer shift towards mobile shopping has meant a surge in the adoption of InMobi’s shoppable media and online to online/offline commerce solutions by brands for maximizing ROI,” added Rishi. “These solutions, along with our unique deterministic audience targeting on programmatic, will play an even more significant role for brands in this online festive season.”

To read more about Decoding the Connected Southeast Asian Festive Shopper in 2021 report, visit https://go.inmobi.com/2021-festive-season-report-sea/ or reach out to mobilemarketing@inmobi.com

About InMobi
InMobi is a world-leading provider of marketing and monetization technologies reaching billions of consumers around the globe. With deep expertise and unique reach in mobile, it is the trusted and transparent technology partner for marketers, content creators, and businesses of all kinds. InMobi’s mission is to power its customers’ growth by helping them engage their audiences and build meaningful connections.

Its affiliated businesses--Glance, the world’s largest lock screen-based content discovery platform and video-platform Roposo--help InMobi create new content and commerce experiences in a world of connected devices. InMobi maintains dual headquarters in San Francisco and Bangalore with operations in New York, Chicago, Kansas City, Delhi, Mumbai, Beijing, Shanghai, Jakarta, Singapore, Metro Manila, Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Melbourne, Seoul, Tokyo, London, and Dubai.

To learn more, visit www.inmobi.com.