Potential and Growth of Digital Economy in Southeast Asia

Welcome to our 4th session about Digital Economy with our guest speaker Ms Eunice Huang, Trade Policy Manager from Google. In our first 3 sessions we focused studying the newly signed Digital Economy Partnership Agreement "DEPA". In this session we will dive in the potential of digital economy by focusing in Southeast Asia Internet economy development and growth.

A decade ago, four in five Southeast Asians had limited access to the Internet. Today, there are 360 million Internet users in the region, with more than nine in 10 accessing the Internet primarily through smartphones.

They spend most of their time not only on entertainment in the form of social media, video and gaming apps, but also on business, education and productivity apps. As the world's most engaged mobile Internet users, the netizens of Southeast Asia are shaping technology trends in their own way.

• Southeast Asia's Internet economy is now worth US$100 billion and it is expected to grow to US$300 billion by 2025, yet again exceeding earlier projections of US$240 billion.
• The region has tremendous potential for further growth thanks to fundamental consumer behaviour changes, growing Internet connectivity and more.
• Investors remain bullish about Southeast Asia despite the global economic headwinds, with over US$37 billion of capital poured into the region's Internet economy over the past four years.

Taken from "e-Conomy SEA 2019 'a study jointly produced by Google, Temasek and Bain&Company.