06 Feb What kinds of Apps Southeast Asians Used the Most in 2019?
About 90% of the total internet users in Southeast Asia mused their smartphone to log on to the web. Between 2015 and 2019, over 50,000 new people every day logged on to the internet. Which makes the total number of user in 2019 reached by 100 millions in 2015 to 360 millions in 2019, said Temasek and Bain & Co through a recent study by Google. So, Apps that used the most by Southeast Asian are:-
1) E-commerce and Ridehailing
E-commerce and ridehailing apps were the most used in the region, and companies that topped the sector included Grab , Gojek, Lazada, among several others. E-commerce users rose to 150 million in 2019, from 49 million in 2015, while ridehailing active users rose soared nearly five times to 40 million in 2019, from 8 million in 2015.
Food delivery apps, clubbed under these two umbrella categories, are also gaining momentum for the convenience they afford the rising middle class population.
In e-commerce, users in the region turned to online shopping platforms not just for big-ticket items such as electronics, but also for lower-cost items such as groceries, personal items, clothing, subscription boxes etc.
2) Digital Payments
By 2025, for every $2 that is spent, almost $1 would be online, the study estimates. Today, most of the fintech platforms are geared towards digital payments, although other financial services are gaining traction.
Online research for financial services is increasing too, even though most users still choose to buy financial products offline. In Singapore, 60% people and in Vietnam, 50% people wanting to buy financial services did research online. And around 72% in Indonesia used online gateways for information on loans.
3) Bridging the Communication Gap for Work and Play
For productivity, users in Southeast Asia continued to trust Google Docs and sheets to enable efficient workflow, as well as collaborate with teammates across the world. People also used video apps to look for ‘reviews’ of products and services, as well as for education. To make communication easier in a region with at least 10 official languages, apps like Google Translate were critical. Ridehailing and travel apps employed Google Translate to enable communication in real time between users and service providers in the region.
4) Finding Your Way
Apps that help users locate places and businesses, or suggest the best routes to destinations were widely used by Southeast Asians in 2019, the study showed. Waze, Google Maps were among the most used apps in this category, with users looking to them for real-time traffic updates, public transport schedules, and information such as location and opening hours, on small and medium-sized businesses. The apps were also popularly used to check product reviews, booking services online, and searching for restaurants and hotels.
5) Entertainment
Online media grew by almost four times in the last four years in Southeast Asia, to over $14 billion in 2019, and the sector is expected to grow to $32 billion by 2025, the research showed. Underpinning the boom in video and music streaming is the rise in new interest users in the region, as well as online advertising spend, which allows these services to expand rapidly into newer regions, and offer more variety of content.
According to Google Trends, queries for subscription video streaming brands like Hooq, iFlix, Netflix and Viu grew more than five times in Malaysia and seven times in the Philippines and Singapore over the last four years, hitting all-time peaks in 2019.