Southeast Asia – The world’s fastest-growing game market

Over 400 million people across Southeast Asia (SEA) access the internet daily, representing 10% of the world’s total internet user.

With close to 4 million new internet users each month and characterized by a young population willing to buy online, Southeast Asia is a tempting prospect for international eCommerce merchants, including online game retailers.

SEA consists of 11 countries, which include the five dominant so-called ‘tiger cubs’; Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, and the small but wealthy territories of Singapore and Brunei.

Southeast Asia offers a large and steadily growing market space for international game developers and resellers.

There are now more than 2.5 billion gamers across the world. Combined, they spent $152.1 billion on games in 2019, representing an increase of +9.6% year on year. And this revenue is expected to be more than $180.1 billion by 2021.

In total, the Asia-Pacific territories generated over $71.4 billion by the end of 2019 — or to put it in perspective: 46% of total global game revenues. And a big slice of this pie is owned by South East Asian countries.

The region is the fastest-growing game market in the world. SEA’s games market generated more than $4.6 billion in 2019, up +22.0% year-on-year, and the revenue is projected to pass $8.3 billion in 2023 with 320 million gamers.

According to research from GlobalWebIndex, SEA countries have some of the highest levels of eCommerce adoption in the world, with Indonesian internet users reporting the highest rates of active online shopping of any nation in the company’s 46-country survey.

So, it is not surprising when it comes to games within the region, Indonesia leads the list as the fastest growth in revenue in the games industry. Followed by Thailand and Vietnam, this last one also considered the country with the fastest growth in the number of online gamers.

There are a few reasons to believe that the SEA market will keep flourishing. The region’s online and mobile payments are still on a steady rise, with online transactions expected to grow by 25% in the following years, therefore increasing the numbers of online gamers.

Source: Newzoo**

Also, due to improvements in internet infrastructure, as well as disposable income, coupled with demand for Esports games, tournaments, streaming and more, the stage is set for continued growth in the next five years.

The gaming industry has flourished in the past decade and will continue to do so. With a growing youth population, there is no reason why South East Asia shouldn’t become your next market.

For the majority of SEA, using cards to shop online is not the primary choice – so retailers need to consider offering the following popular non-card payment methods.

dLocal’s solutions for Indonesia can help you tap into SEA’s most important country: Close to 56% of the population is currently online, and the number of debit and credit cards issued is only 15%. Learn more about Indonesia’s payment methods on our country page or talk to us directly for more information.

dLocal payments solutions in Indonesia