Decoded: Asia’s Digital Consumers – The Complexities of How They Search, Find and Buy

·         Insights on digital consumer behaviours in Singapore, Malaysia,
Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and China revealed

·         Latest research looks at behaviours for search and
discovery, triggers of product interest and purchase intent, finding good deals
and brand engagement

·         The rise of omni-channel: as consumers become increasingly
connected, a one-size-fits all marketing strategy just won’t work

SINGAPORE, AUGUST 30th, 2016 — Experian, the leader in global information
services, today announced The Digital Consumer View 2016 (Asia) report, with
research and analysis by International Data Corporation (IDC), to help
businesses better understand digital consumers in Asia.

The report reveals how consumer behaviour varies across the key
Asian markets of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and
China, based on surveys with over 1,200 digital consumers.

It maps significant differences in how consumers research,
locate, engage with and purchase products and services. These differences exist
across channels (SMS, app notifications, email, social media, chat apps),
devices (smart phone, feature phone, Wi-Fi/cellular tablet, wearable) and
content (ads in email, ads in mobile apps, ads in social media, video ads on
websites, and search ads). The findings highlight the complexity of reaching
digital consumers in Asia across many channels, but also highlight how crucial
that is.

Jeff Price, Managing Director of Southeast Asia at Experian,
notes that while the region is fast-growing, consumer behaviour in each market
has unique disparities. Businesses today cannot succeed without intelligent
insights based on consumer data.

Mr Price said, “Asia is in the midst of a great digital
revolution, with an explosion of smart devices, social media interactions and
e-commerce transactions. The beneficiary of this interconnectivity is clearly
the digital consumer, but also businesses serving them. While this evolution
has greatly enabled and empowered both sides, it has also challenged businesses
to be more effective and targeted in the way they communicate and market to
this modern, digital-savvy consumer.

“For companies to keep up with digital consumer behaviours – how
they act on information – it’s absolutely vital to adopt and leverage what
their consumers are providing them with every day – invaluable data. Businesses
slow to act on this data will see their competitive advantage erode.”

Key findings on search and discovery, triggers of product
interest and purchase intent, origin of deals and brand engagement across
channels include:

·         Search and discovery: Social media is the
top channel in Singapore (31 percent), Malaysia (49 percent), Indonesia (67
percent) and Thailand (58 percent). It’s equally important as chat apps in
China (47 percent); in Hong Kong, video ads (63 percent) trumps all.

·         Triggering product interest:
Social media, once again, is the key driver in Singapore (28 percent), Malaysia
(44 percent), Thailand (49 percent) and Hong Kong (25 percent). However, in
Indonesia it’s SMS (62 percent), and in China it is chat apps (48 percent).

·         Triggering purchase intent:
Email is the biggest driver of online to offline conversion in Singapore (27
percent); SMS tops in Indonesia (57 percent); chat apps in China (45 percent);
social media in Malaysia (44 percent) and Thailand (51 percent); and video ads
tie with social media in Hong Kong (23 percent).

·         Finding good deals: For unplanned
purchases stemming from promotions, email leads in Singapore (34 percent);
social media in Malaysia (50 percent), Indonesia (68 percent) and Thailand (58
percent); SMS in Hong Kong (36 percent), and social media in China (51
percent).

·         Brand engagement: Email is key for
marketers to build engagement in Singapore (58 percent) and Thailand (60
percent); chat apps in Malaysia (62 percent) and China (70 percent); banner ads
in Indonesia (56 percent), and SMS in Hong Kong (61 percent). While email is
important, marketers need to be wary: more than 70 percent of consumers
reported receiving too many emails, up from 52 percent in 2015.

·         Over-reliance on a single marketing channel will not work.
Depending on the country and its current state of digital sophistication,
marketers need to think carefully about the right mix of channels to employ.

·         Quality over quantity. Consumer preferences for receiving
promotional material varies from market to market, and by specific use cases.
On a broader level, more is not necessarily better. A relevant and targeted
message will ensure better conversion. Too much, and consumers are inclined to
unsubscribe, delete, or mark content as spam.

·         The quality and integrity of data is crucial for marketers to
find success. A significant number of consumers across the region either
knowingly or unknowingly provide inaccurate information, which in turn causes
errors and inaccuracies in marketer’s data sets. Around 27 percent of consumers
in China but only 10 percent in Singapore unknowingly input wrong payment
details; 40 percent of consumers in China, and over 20 percent of consumers in
the rest of the region provide a wrong address at online checkout.

·         Incredibly, almost all consumers in Indonesia provide marketers
with wrong details: name (93 percent), phone number (94 percent) and email
address (95 percent).

Exhibit: A comparison of key learnings and insights by market.

Shiv Putcha, Associate Director, Consumer Mobility and Telco
Strategy at IDC Asia Pacific, said, “Businesses and brands cannot afford to
ignore Asia’s multi-trillion-dollar digital commerce market China alone is now
the world’s largest retail market. The challenge lies in the fact that the
region has extraordinary differences – language, economy, purchasing power –
and consumer behaviours, especially with the digital generation. That
uniqueness will not diminish over the next few years and may even
increase,  making it challenging for marketers not using data-driven
insights to research, plan and execute effectively. The Digital Consumer View
2016 (Asia) will hopefully serve as a valuable guide to deciphering some of
these key trends, mapping the path forward for brands and their connected
consumers.”

Asia comprises 49.6 percent of the world’s Internet users,
according to Internet
World Stats (2016), digital
commerce in the Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) region will rise to US$17
trillion by 2019, up from US$7 trillion in 2015 according to International
Data Corporation (IDC). The
combination of rising incomes, increased consumption, acceleration of internet
use, and the proliferation of mobile broadband access continues to unlock
tremendous opportunities for marketers across the continent.

Digital Consumer View 2016 (Asia) offers marketers
compelling insights into consumer behaviour trends relating to digital
marketing channel preferences, digital marketing consumption, content
relevancy, and data accuracy – to stay ahead of the competition. Digital
Consumer View 2016 (Asia) surveyed over 1,200 respondents across Singapore,
Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong and China. Respondents were over 18
years of age, and own at least one mobile device (smart phone, feature phone,
Wifi/Cellular tablet, and wearable). Produced with International Data
Corporation (IDC), the report is one of 2016’s must-read research findings on
the Asian digital landscape. The report is available for download on Experian’s
website.