Singapore tops Asia in frequency of online purchases

Singapore tops Asia in frequency of online purchases

Singapore emerged tops in Asia for frequency of online purchases, and far ahead of its neighbors including Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, a survey said on Sunday.

AC Nielsen found at least eight out of 10 Singaporean web users have made purchases online.

The proportion, however, is smaller than in Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, where nine out of 10 do so.

The global survey, published in The Sunday Times, gathered 21,100 responses from 38 countries. It estimated nearly 620 million people, or 10 percent of the world's population, have made a purchase online.

What they buy differs broadly. The Chinese opt for books, the Thais, DVDs; the Japanese, groceries and the South Koreans, cosmetics.

Singaporeans, avid bargain hunters, purchase about six items a month online. Plane tickets are the most sought after, the survey said, with more than one-third of shoppers having booked flights on the Internet.

Bank officer Alan Tan, 50, said he even bought a toothbrush from a website.

"It was 6 Singapore dollars (US$3.50) in the shop and I thought that was very expensive," Tan was quoted as saying. "When I went online I found the same toothbrush selling at 7 Singapore dollars for two."

Only Germany, Britain and Poland outranked Singapore as countries shopping more often on the net.

The city-state was 17th on the global list of countries with the biggest proportion of online buyers, putting it on par with Canada, Denmark and Norway.

Topping the list were Germany, Austria and Britain, each with near 100 percent responses.

Singapore was ahead of Malaysia, with 57 percent, the Philippines, 44 percent, and Indonesia, 30 percent.

"With Internet penetration at close to 60 percent, Singapore has for quite some time enjoyed a critical mass of consumers that manufacturers and service providers can target online," said Ashok Charan, managing director of AC Nielsen Singapore. -- DPA