E-commerce in Mexico

E-commerce

Internet access

With the goal of universal connectivity, internet access was instituted as a constitutional right of all citizens of Mexico by the telecommunications reform of 2013.  There are currently 85 million Internet users in Mexico, which represents 63% of the population over the age of six. Increased connectivity has spurred the growth of Mexico’s emerging digital economy. There were 86.3 million smartphone users in Mexico in 2017, and that number is expected to grow to 90.7 million by 2020. The most popular search engines are Google (94.86%), Bing (3.31%), Yahoo! (1.64%), MSN (0.08%), DuckDuckGo (0.06%), Ask Jeeves (0.02%).

E-commerce market

E-commerce sales revenue in 2017 was US$ 21 billion, a figure that is expected to reach US$ 39 billion by 2021. Online shopping currently represents 2% of the country’s roughly $203 billion in annual retail sales, representing a huge opportunity as Mexicans have only begun to adopt e-commerce. There are currently 37.9 million online shoppers in Mexico—a figure that is projected to reach 55.3 million by 2020. Although many Mexicans browse products on mobile, they’re more likely to make the final purchase on desktop. 70% of Mexican online shoppers purchase using desktops, while 25% purchase using mobile devices. Mexico’s BtoC market is much more developed than its business to business (B2B) market. In 2017, the Mexican B2C e-commerce turnover grew by 26.21% to US$ 4.8 billion. In 2016, personal electronics were the largest category, with a market spend of US$ 2.9 million. Fashion will bypass personal electronics by 2020 and generate US$ 4.9 million of e-commerce revenue.

E-commerce sales and customers

Segmenting users into gender and age groups shows that, in line with global trends, younger users are the most likely to use e-commerce. However, men between the ages of 25-44 are more likely to shop online than women. By 2020, men between the ages of 16 and 44 will have a US$ 236 million market share, compared to women of the same age accounting for US$ 199 million. When not taking gender into account, 32% of buyers are in the 25 to 34 age bracket, followed by 18 to 24 (31%) and 35 to 44 (17%). Laptops and computers are the preferred device when it comes to shopping online. However, mobile shopping is growing, and 45% of Mexicans make mobile purchases every month. Of online shoppers, 44% use only Mexican sites for their purchases, 39% use Mexican and foreign sites, and 5% use foreign sites only. Of the foreign websites, the US accounts for 48% of all Mexico’s imports, followed by China, Japan, South Korea and Germany. Popular online payment methods are credit cards (64%), direct bank deposit (12%), online wire transfer (11%) and cash in participating convenience stores (9%).

Social media

Social media is incredibly popular in Mexico, especially among people in the 20 to 30 age range, with 96% of people in that group using at least one social media platform. Internet users in Mexico are spending an average of 3.5 hours on social networking platforms, a number which is steadily on the rise. In the country, 81% of internet users access the internet daily. Mexico is the fifth largest market in the world for Facebook, at 50 million users, with rapid growths also for Instagram and Pinterest. The most popular social networks are Facebook (75.6%), Pinterest (9.98%), Twitter (5.46%), YouTube (5.06%), Instagram (1.84%), Tumblr (0.67%).