One in Five Smart Phone Users in APAC Now Shopping with A Digital Wallet

(Marketingmagazine.com.my) – Just prior to the 2016 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, MasterCard’s latest Mobile Shopping Survey reveals that consumers in Asia Pacific are embracing new mobile technologies with one in five (19.5 percent) using digital wallets, a two-fold increase from two years ago (9.7 percent).

Emerging markets are leading the way with smartphone users in China (45.0 percent), India (36.7 percent) and Singapore (23.3 percent) the region’s biggest adopters of digital wallets.

The results are based on interviews that took place between October and December 2015 with 8,500 people aged 18-64 across 14 markets in Asia Pacific.

While mobile banking apps (31.8 percent) are still the most widely used among other new mobile technologies such as in-app shopping and mobile NFC payments, digital wallets have seen the fastest uptake over the last two years.

In addition, consumers continue to embrace mobile shopping with half in Asia Pacific having made a purchase using their smart phone in the three months.

Unsurprisingly, the markets that have seen strong uptake of digital wallets are also where the majority of people are using their mobiles to shop.

Three quarters of people in India and China are now shopping on smart phones.

According to Raj Dhamodharan, Group Head, Digital Payments, Asia Pacific, MasterCard :“New forms of mobile payment technology, such as MasterCard’s digital wallet MasterPass, are making transactions easier and safer, online, in-app and in-store. As more and more merchant apps provide shopping and services, consumers need a digital wallet that provides the best balance between security and convenience. We are already seeing that demand in many markets in Asia Pacific from India to Singapore to Australia. In Singapore for example consumers are using their MasterPass wallet to pay their bills and book taxis. In each of these cases we worked with merchants to enable safe and simple in app payments using MasterPass.”

Other findings:
• Overall, close to half of respondents (48.5 percent) across the region have made a purchase using their smartphone in the past three months, led by those in India (76.4 percent), China (76.1 percent), South Korea (62.0 percent) and Thailand (61.1 percent).

• India also tops the region in growth rates, with the number of people shopping on smartphones rising by 29.3 percent from two years ago, followed by Vietnam (17.7 percent) and Singapore (17.1 percent).

• Australians (23.7 percent) and New Zealanders (16.2 percent) are the least likely to shop online via their mobile phones.

• More than half of the respondents across Asia Pacific (53.9 percent) cited convenience as the key driver for shopping on their smartphone. Other motivating factors include the ability to shop on the go (42.9 percent) and the growingavailability of apps that make it easy to shop online (41.4 percent).

• Clothing and accessories (35 percent), personal care and beauty products (20.9 percent) and movie tickets (20.4 percent) are the top mobile shopping purchases amongst Asia Pacific consumers. Close to half of consumers in China (46.4 percent), India (42.5 percent) and Korea (42.1 percent) shop for clothing and accessories on their smartphone.