Overall, Southeast Asia is expected to be home to 350 million online shoppers – or 78 percent of the region’s population – by the end of 2021, up from 310 million at the end of last year. Online spending is expected to grow 60 percent per person this year, pushing total e-commerce sales to expand two-fold to $254 billion in gross merchandise value by 2026, the report finds.

The average consumer in the region was estimated to spend $381 online this year, compared to $238 last year. This figure was further projected to hit $671 per shopper in 2026.

The survey polled 16,706 consumers across six Southeast Asian markets, namely Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. The researchers found a rapid pace of digital adoption during the Covid-19 pandemic and related lockdowns, noting that the speed of growth in online spending in Southeast Asia outpaces the likes of China with five percent, India with ten percent, and Brazil with 14 percent.

As a result, Internet and tech start-ups grew to dominate venture capital and private equity funding for the region, commanding 88 percent of deals by value in the first quarter of this year, up from 75 percent a year earlier. Financial technology, or fintech, was the dominant sub-category with 56 percent of tech funding, spanning such services as buy-now-pay-later, peer-to-peer lending, digital wallets, and cryptocurrency.

According to Investvine