Leading secondary research organization yStats.com, based in Hamburg, Germany, has released a new market report titled “Asia-Pacific B2C E-Commerce Market 2017”. The publication cites forecasts concerning the future of B2C E-Commerce in the Asia-Pacific region and details market trends and statistics for 11 countries. According to the findings in this report, Asia-Pacific is projected to maintain double-digit growth rates and expand its share of global B2C E-Commerce sales to around one-half by 2021.
Asia-Pacific is the world’s largest B2C E-Commerce market and still remains among the fastest growing. According to a forecast cited in this report by yStats.com, by 2021 the region will account for nearly half of global B2C E-Commerce sales of products and digital content. Other sources already attribute a global sales share of more than 50% to Asia-Pacific, when including services and C2C sales online. Between 2016 and 2021, the region’s online sales are projected to maintain strong double-digit growth rates and reach new heights in terms of the E-Commerce share of retail.
Within the forecast period, India is expected to be the growth leader among Asia-Pacific’s top markets, outpacing China, as yStats.com’s report reveals. In both countries, much of the future growth is projected to stem from rural areas where Internet and online shopper penetration is rising more rapidly than in the top tier cities. The nations in Southeast Asia are also experiencing strong growth in B2C E-Commerce sales which are projected to remain in double digits, including even Singapore, already the most advanced of the ASEAN countries pack.
Other advanced markets, including Australia, Japan and South Korea are projected to grow more moderately due to the already high rates of online shopping penetration. In South Korea, for example, the share of E-Commerce in retail sales is approaching the 20% mark, according to statistics cited in yStats.com’s publication. In this situation, as the number of new online shoppers is growing only slowly or remains flat, further development of B2C E-Commerce takes a form of a qualitative trend, such as the reduction of delivery times, increased online offering and product diversification, and the shift to mobile shopping.
M-Commerce is the strongest trend in both the advanced and emerging economies across Asia-Pacific. In many of them, the mobile share of B2C E-Commerce sales has already topped one-third, and in some has approached 50%. As the rising smartphone penetration is supporting this trend, top market players in the region such as Amazon, Alibaba, JD.com, Flipkart, Lazada, and Rakuten record increased mobile traffic and transaction share.
