By the end of this year, it is expected that a value addition of $23 billion will occur in the digital economy in this country. This surge is due to many people using digital financial access such as mobile banking, QR code payments, digital wallets, as well as other financial products including insurance.
This momentum is expected to continue to increase reaching $50 billion by 2025, which is largely driven by e-commerce revenues. This puts Malaysia at the same value as Singapore, but behind Indonesia (110 billion), Thailand (50 billion), Vietnam (40 billion) and the Philippines (35 billion).
Commenting on the report, Malaysia's digital economy as a whole is expected to continue on a gradual and good recovery path with a growth rate of 14% by 2025. That growth will be aided by an increase of 7% which can also be achieved by the end of this year. Even so, the value is lower than the 16% recorded since 2021.
Next, it is also contributed by the vigorous activity in the online tourism platform sector of 49%, which is followed by transport & food (16%) and online media (7%) in 2023. However, it witnessed a less encouraging performance for the e-platform sector -trading with a negative value at -4%, due to supply uncertainty globally which may indirectly affect the platform.
Through the same data, the application of digital access in Malaysia is said to continue to increase over time, which has seen Kuala Lumpur become the leader for it. Meanwhile, this report also focuses on high value users which shows that users in Malaysia are more open and willing to spend for gaming needs with an average number of about 13.4 users.
All of this growth can be said to be contributed by the flow of consumer confidence which is seen increasing in the third quarter of this year.