E-commerce in Indonesia

E-commerce

E-commerce market

The most populous country in Southeast Asia by far, Indonesia is still in an early stage of development when it comes to internet, mobile and digital technologies. It is therefore one of the most sought-after market globally for e-commerce, with large local players and global heavyweights fighting for this enormous growing market. In 2017, the total e-commerce revenue amounted to US$ 8.59 billion, a figure that is expected to grow and reach US$ 16.48 billion by 2021. Still accounting for less than 1% of all sales in Indonesia, e-commerce is expected to expand in high double digits in the coming years. There are still issues with inadequate infrastructure, poor payment systems, and logistics that have to be addressed. For instance, although the number of credit card users jumped 60% in the past five years to around 15 million, 70% of e-commerce payments are completed with bank transfers and only 15% with credit cards. Also, delivery is too slow and expensive due to challenging geography paired with poor infrastructure, and absence of high-tech logistics companies. This represents valuable opportunities for e-commerce technology, applications and other supporting products and services.

Social media

According to a survey by WeAreSocial, there currently are 130 million social media users in Indonesia. According to Statista, as of the third quarter 2017, 49% of the total population of Indonesia were active social media users. The most popular social platform was YouTube with a 43% penetration rate, followed by Facebook (41%), WhatsApp (40%), Instagram (38%), LINE (33%), BBM (28%), Twitter (27%), Google+ (25%), Facebook Messenger (24%), LinkedIn (16%), Skype (15%) and WeChat (14%). Indonesia has the 4th highest number of active Twitter users and the 4th highest number of Facebook users in the world. According to eMarketer, almost 90% of Indonesia’s social network users are under the age of 34 (54% of them between 16 and 24).