INCLUDED for the first time, the Philippines zoomed past India and Indonesia in the latest Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Electronic Commerce (e-commerce) Index by a United Nations (UN) agency.
In the latest UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) E-commerce Index, which measures the readiness of countries to engage in online commerce, the Philippines ranked 89 above India, 90, and Indonesia, 93. B2C is a type of transaction wherein businesses sell products or services to consumers. For the second consecutive year, Luxembourg is the top performer country, the report said. Among the top 10 economies, six are European, three are from the Asia-Pacific region and one is from North America.
Among developing economies, three high-income economies—Republic of Korea, Hong Kong (China) and Singapore—rank the highest, followed by several Gulf States. The Unctad includes the Philippines among the top 10 economies in its index of the Developing Asia and Oceania region. The Republic of Korea tops this region, while India is at the tail end.
According to Unctad, its B2C E-commerce Index 2016 is composed of four indicators: Internet use penetration; secure servers per 1 million inhabitants; credit-card penetration; and a postal reliability score. This year’s index increased the geographic coverage, from 130 to 137 economies, which represent 96 percent of the world population and 99 percent of world’s GDP.
According to the report, the Philippines’s share of individuals using Internet (2014 or latest) was higher at 40 percent of total population than India’s 18 percent, Indonesia’s 17 percent and Thailand’s 35 percent. However, that number pales in comparison with Vietnam (48 percent of the total population) and Malaysia (68 percent).
Meanwhile, the share of individuals with credit card in the Philippines was lower than India’s 4 percent and Thailand’s 6 percent of population. In terms of secure Internet servers per 1 million people, the Philippines ties with Vietnam (52 percent) and is higher than India’s 46 percent and Indonesia’s 47 percent. Malaysia had 69 percent secure Internet servers per 1 million people, while Thailand had 58 percent in 2014, the data reference for the index. The Unctad report noted that the number of post offices in the Philippines is a factor in the ranking.
“Given that consumers seem to prefer a mix of options besides home delivery or post office retrieval, an indicator based on the number of post offices may be limiting,” the Unctad report said. “In some developing countries, courier outlets have been growing and now exceed traditional postal locations.” The Unctad noted that, like in Nigeria, e-commerce companies in the Philippines partner with local courier companies or have their own delivery trucks.
In the Philippines online shopping site Lazada collaborates with courier company LBC Express for deliveries. However, the Unctad said there is no clear statistical relationship between the ability to receive parcels at home from the incumbent postal operator and the speed of delivery or the price of sending it. According to the Unctad, the index “helps policy-makers assess to what extent their economies are e-commerce ready and what areas are in greatest need of improvement.”