Mobile Commerce on the Rise in Asia/Pacific, Says MasterCard Survey

Asia’s appetite for online shopping has shifted from the PC to the smartphone with more than half of Indonesian and Thai consumers using their mobile phones to shop, according to results from a MasterCard online survey.

According to MasterCard, Indonesians top the region with more than half of respondents (54.5%) using their smartphones to shop in the last three months. China follows closely with 54.1% and Thailand with 51%.

About 40% of online shoppers in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore made a purchase with their phone in the past three months. The least likely to shop online via their mobile phones, though, are respondents from New Zealand (18.2%), Australia (18.7%), and the Philippines (21.4%), the survey found.

For Mobile NFC Payments, 70.3% of the respondents who are aware or slightly familiar with the technology will likely try and adopt it in the first 12 months of its introduction. About the same have expressed interest in digital wallets (71.5%) and SMS/MMS-based payments (72.5%). Even social-networking-based shopping apps are poised to be welcomed and tried by 70.7% of the respondents across Asia/Pacific, the survey found.

Also according to the survey, more than 1 in 3 respondents felt buying locally was safer as they were afraid of scams and perceived a possible risk of information being compromised.

Among those who did not make an online purchase in the 3 months preceding the survey, more than one-third cited being unsure about the safety and security of making transactions online as their key barrier.

The survey was conducted between November and December 2012 and polled 7,011 people from 14 markets Asia/Pacific markets who were asked questions about their online shopping habits.

Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio