Indonesia leads SEA in rising online technical consumer goods sales

Online sales of technical consumer goods in the region rose to 43% in Q1.

Indonesia is one of the markets in Southeast Asia that has been demonstrating the steadiest hike in e-commerce contributions for technical consumer goods (TCG), according to GfK Market Intelligence.

Online sales in Indonesia have been contributing an increasing share of the overall TCG market value, rising for three years straight — from 14% in 2019, 19% in 2020 and subsequently to 23% in the latest period. Singapore (22%) and Thailand (22%) are the two other markets where online sales contributions have exceeded 20 percent of the overall TCG market in Q1 2021.

GfK also found out that consumers in SEA are turning to online shopping as a result of restriction measures enforced by governments.

One of the few sectors which has managed to benefit greatly from the COVID-19 pandemic is e-commerce, with online sales of TCG in the region surging to 43% in Q1. This increase translates to $594m in sales.

Media tablets, in particular, saw a spike of 80% in Q1 2021 because of the work at home trend in the region. Similarly, mobile computing devices also registered a similar uptrend, with sales value growing from 9% in 2020 to 35% in 2021.

“The “at-home” experiences have kept the online marketplace going and provided a cushion against economic shocks created by the pandemic in the past months. Going forward, these “at-home” experiences will continue to shape the online marketplace and economic drivers that are vital for success even in the post pandemic world, in areas of convenience, performance, as well as health and hygiene,” Alexander Dehmel, Market Insights Lead of GfK Asia said.