Thriving E-commerce Means Increased Fraud Exposure

SINGAPORE, November 2016 — Experian, the leader in global information services, has announced the appointment of Nick Boyle as its Managing Director of Southeast Asia (SEA) and Emerging Markets. Under Boyle’s leadership, Experian will focus on its rapidly growing customer base in SEA, amid increasing demand for customer management and acquisition solutions through smart data driven by analytics. Boyle has over 15 years of experience in software, data and analytics, 10 years of which have been across leadership roles at Experian, managing multiple arms of its Asia Pacific business including data quality and marketing services. His most recent role was General Manager for Sales in Asia Pacific. Boyle said: “Businesses are now more than ever realizing the importance of adopting strong data management practices. As the global leader in information services, our clients benefit from powerful analytics-led capabilities to stay on top of the ever-changing needs of consumers, and in the process, deliver data-driven opportunities to the over six hundred million people in Southeast Asia.” One key factor driving transformation among established firms is the unprecedented e-commerce growth in Southeast Asia driven by the widespread adoption of smartphones. This has resulted in more people owning a smartphone than having a bank account. “This situation presents businesses, notably banking and telecommunications firms, with a unique opportunity to reach a new customer segment while enabling financial inclusion; providing financial services to the unbanked.” said Boyle. "Experian connects financial institutions and telecommunication operators through technologies founded on data analytics and micro-analytics. This allows them to serve customers at a lower cost and therefore a larger segment of the population. The goal is for every smartphone user to have access to financial products and services.”

November 28, 2016

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. Key Learnings for Marketers in Asia 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). 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.

August 30, 2016

SINGAPORE, NOVEMBER 12, 2015 – According to the latest study released by Experian Marketing Services Asia Pacific, the “Digital Consumer View 2015 (Asia)”, 74 percent of Asian consumers receive personalised mail. However, nearly three out of four consumers (70 percent) find the content irrelevant, in spite of marketers being aware of the need for personalised data; driving home the point that personalisation does not necessarily equate to relevant content.   The study takes a closer look into the digital consumer landscape in Asia and highlights the pressing and immediate need for businesses and marketers to relook at their approach to engaging with consumers. In order to improve the business bottom-line by increasing the effectiveness of their marketing spend, business need to improve their understanding of consumers’ preferences and behaviour when it comes to channels, devices and content. Top line findings of Asian consumers from the study: Smartphone usage dominates across Asia with 88 percent using their smartphone most or all of the time. Consumers often or very often use their smartphones for social chat apps (83 percent) and surfing the internet (77 percent). Across Asia, email was identified as the best performing channel for driving a purchase (64 percent) followed by social media (53 percent). The majority of consumers receives personalised content via email (74 percent), social media (69 percent) and SMS (69 percent) but find the content on email (70 percent), social media (57 percent) and SMS (56 percent) irrelevant. The accuracy and messaging on integrated content can be improved across channels with 29 – 44 percent of respondents reported receiving conflicting messages depending on the channels such as email, SMS and apps. Asian consumers are happy or very happy to receive offers based on their purchase history (59 percent). Commenting on the findings of the study, Patrick Sim General Manager of Experian Marketing Services for South East Asia said, “We are at an interesting turning point for marketing as consumers are increasingly empowered by social media and mobile technology. The new generation of digital consumers today access information on their own terms, expecting it to be current, relevant as well as device and platform compatible. This has forced marketers to rethink their engagement strategies when it comes to achieving a single customer view.”   He added, “As seen in the Digital Consumer View (Asia) 2015, businesses need to move away from a one-size fits all approach. They need to focus on content relevancy and accurate targeting efforts or risk seeing constant missed opportunities, ultimately impacting a company’s business growth.”   Consumers spend the most time on their smartphones With nearly all respondents (98 percent) in Asia owning a smartphone and 88 percent choosing to use the device most or all of the time – smartphone is the device of choice in Asia, making it a channel that cannot be ignored by businesses seeking to reach consumers in Asia. Consumers in China are the most prolific users; 94 percent use their smartphone all the time.   Consumers are also buying more on the move, with 91 percent of them having shopped at least once on their smartphones. This means that a robust mobile strategy would have a direct impact on business revenues.   Email is best performing avenue despite challenges Email on mobile is the best way to reach out to the digital consumer. Across Asia, mobile is the most popular platform for opening emails (68 percent). At the same time, the best performing channel for driving a purchase is also email - nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of respondents have purchased something as a result of promotional content they received via email. This is followed by social media at 53 percent especially in Thailand (65 percent), Indonesia (63 percent) and Malaysia (62 percent). Content from SMS and social chat apps like LINE and WeChat are also largely successful in driving purchases (both 39 percent).   Surprisingly, despite being highly connected, consumers in Singapore were found to be the least responsive to marketing content across channels such as social chat (19 percent) and mobile applications (27 percent), while email remains as a key driver for purchase (60 percent).   Opportunities abound for businesses With only 10 percent of respondents indicating that they do not wish to receive any promotion content, there is still a huge opportunity for marketers to reach out to consumers. The need for mobile responsive mails, content marketing and placement is greater than ever against today’s increasingly crowded digital space.   Key to this would be the refinement of personalisation strategies across devices and channel with more than half of the respondents showing positive sentiments towards receiving content based on their purchase history (59 percent), delivery options (57 percent), and recently viewed history (55 percent).   “While most companies recognise the benefits of a multi-channel and multi-touch point approach, the challenge is to provide content that is sufficiently interesting and relevant to the audience,” Sim emphasised. “Businesses and marketers need to relook at their marketing strategies to ensure sufficient engagement occurs across key channels without sacrificing consistency and cohesion in their messages.”     Methodology The study was conducted by WBR Digital on behalf of Experian Asia Pacific. WBR Digital surveyed 1200 digital consumers from Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Mainland China between the ages of 18 and 55. A Digital Consumer is defined as an individual who is active on their mobile device(s) and directly impacted by marketing efforts and messages of companies that use these channels.   The survey was conducted via a self-administered online survey in August 2015. Final results were compiled and anonymised by WBR Digital.

November 12, 2015