South East Asia marketplace has huge potential for app developers

South East Asia’s marketplace has the world’s most engaged mobile users. According to marketing and re-targeting platform, Liftoff, the region has amazing prospects for app marketers.

The Liftoff 2019 Southeast Asia App Engagement Report provides marketing insights from Liftoff’s mobile app campaigns in Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand.

Its statistics are obtained from between 1 March 2018 to February 28, 2019; spanning 28 billion ad impressions, 656 million ad clicks, 5.2 million installs, and 13.5 million first-time post-install events.

Up to 90 percent of people in Southeast Asia connect to the internet via their smartphones and spend an average of four hours on mobile apps; an hour more than the rest of the world.

Rising affluence, urbanization, and growing demand for convenience are the key drivers of further mobile growth in the region.

However, despite the extensive use of mobile engagement in the region, the adoption of digital technology and growth of income in Southeast Asia is still much lower when compared to other major markets.

This requires mobile marketers to take a hyper-local approach in each country and rely on data to guide their strategies.

Below are some of the key insights obtained from the Liftoff 2019 Southeast Asia App Engagement Report:

# 1 Scaling user acquisition in a diverse market comes with its own set of challenges

Southeast Asia is regionally diverse in culture, politics, religion, language, and income – meaning that marketers need to take a localized approach in each country.

For example, June 2018, the month of Ramadan, had the highest cost for acquiring mobile users who made a purchase.

For the best ROI, marketers must learn and engage high-value mobile users at the right time and plan their campaigns around local and cultural holidays.

#2 Affordability in acquiring users

Data shows that acquiring users within Southeast Asia far more affordable compared to the more mature markets where mobile has become ubiquitous.

Obtaining users in Southeast Asia is 73 percent less than in the U.S. and 65% less than in other APAC countries (excluding Southeast Asia).

#3 Indonesia and Singapore lead retention rates

Acquiring new users cost more than retaining existing ones, and as the mobile app economy grows, mobile marketers focus on customer re-engagement and retention.

Singaporeans are heavy social media users and have the highest mobile retention rate in the region.

In Singapore, 83% of the population are active social media users, in comparison to 42% on average in SEA.

Southeast Asia’s manifold prospects

Another significant area of opportunity is mobile shopping platforms. This is as acquiring mobile users who install, register, and purchase in shopping apps costs less in Southeast Asia compared to the rest of the world.

Purchasing rates mirror the global benchmark (7 percent), signalling that the region is on par with the rest of the world when it comes to spending money on mobile.

Social media affinity

The new 2018 Global Digital suite reported that Philippines had the highest rate of social media users in the world, 75% of the Singaporean population are active internet users.

According to We Are Social’s Digital 2017 report, the number of active social media users in Southeast Asia grew to 31% in a year with over half the population in SEA on social media.

Liftoff’s data shows that Social Networking is the stickiest app category based on the average day 30 retention rate, preceded only by Entertainment and Gaming.