The rise of mCommerce in Malaysia

Online payment gateway provider iPay88 has seen a sharp rise in mobile traffic with its total online payment transactions representing close to 70% of the Malaysian market.

Chan Kok Long, executive director of iPay88 said this was refelctive of the growth of mCommerce in the market.

In year 2015, iPay88 recorded that 3.7 million online shoppers who made purchases through its systems used mobile devices. A year ago it was only 2.0 million.

It is also seeing a rise in merchants actively promoting mobile purchases in 2016 following the mCommerce waves. In the last few years, the percentage of mobile traffic have also increased substantially, with the number being 27% in 2014, to 38.4% in 2015, up until 48.6% in 2016 so far.

In the first quarter of 2016 alone, 1.6 million shoppers have purchased through their mobile devices on iPay88, the company said.

With the rising number of mobile device users increasing, the mCommerce trend is predicted to follow suit. Mobile penetration has reached 136% in 2015, with 47% of Malaysians using their smartphones to online shop.

Statistia, one of the leading statistics companies on the Internet projects the value of retail goods purchased via mobile to exceed USD$1 billion in 2018. Paypal has also cited that 28% of the 4.9 billion payments it processed in 2015 were from mobile devices.

A survey on mobile shopping last year ranked Malaysia third in terms of mobile shopping growth rate in Asia, at over 20%, from 25.4% in 2012 to 45.6% in 2014. Many popular international online stores including Amazon, Apple, Walmart and Google Play have recorded an increasing number of consumers purchasing on their mobile.

In Malaysia, 35% of the purchases on smartphones go to ticketing, while 29% goes to marketplace/group buying, but airline tickets are the most commonly purchased items on Malaysian tablets.

Additionally, the rise of new platforms such as Uber and Grabcar that leverage on mobile booking and transactions also contribute to the rise of popularity in mobile usage and purchasing.

“No doubt the availability of cheap smart phones and laptops have made the Internet accessible to a whole new demographic. The advent of tablets and smart watches has also broadened the spectrum of Internet usage,” Chan said.