MasterCard’s latest Mobile Shopping Survey reveals that consumers in Asia Pacific are embracing new mobile technologies with one in five or (19.5 percent) using digital wallets, a two-fold increase from two years ago (9.7 percent).
Emerging markets are leading the way with smart phone 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 2015with 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.
Overall, close to half of respondents (48.5 percent) across the region have made a purchase using their smart phone 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 smart phones 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 smart phone. Other motivating factors include the ability to shop on the go (42.9 percent) and the growing availability 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 smart phone.
In the Philippines, an increase in mobile shopping was also noted, with 40.9 percent purchasing an item via smart phone in the past three months. Similar to their counterparts in Asia Pacific, Filipinos’ top mobile shopping purchases are 31.5 percent clothes and other fashion accessories, 21.7 percent personal care and beauty products, and 18.3 percent home appliances. Filipinos point to being able to shop on the go and convenience as primary reasons for mobile shopping.
When it comes to new mobile technologies for business and online shopping, 33.5% of Filipinos are more familiar and likely to use mobile banking apps. Digital wallets come second at 17 percent, which has risen from 10.3 percent in the past years.
Raj Dhamodharan, Group Head, Digital Payments, Asia Pacific, MasterCard commented “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.”