Online shopping and ride-hailing have come into focus as Grab, Uber Technologies Inc. and Go-Jek capture consumer preferences with evolving business models. Of the US$12 billion of capital invested in Southeast Asian internet companies since 2016, US$9 billion was raised by its unicorns, or startups with more than US$1 billion valuations. The region, which includes Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, raised just US$1 billion in 2015.
(Dec 13): Southeast Asia’s internet economy, spanning online travel to ride-hailing, will reach US$50 billion ($67.6 billion) this year, putting it on a solid trajectory to grow fourfold by 2025, according to a joint research report by Google and Temasek Holdings.
As more consumers buy airline tickets and book hotels through smartphones, the region’s online travel market expanded from US$19.1 billion in 2015 to US$26.6 billion in 2017, according to a report the two companies released Tuesday. The research covered four key sectors of the internet economy: travel, media, ride-hailing and e-commerce.
