WHILE the majority of users in Southeast Asia will abandon a web site if the experience is slow, there is slightly more patience in the Philippines, a report by Limelight Networks Inc. (LNI) revealed.
Smartphones are the go-to device for accessing the Internet throughout Southeast Asia, and consumers expect fast performance of web sites across all devices, according to the “State of the User Experience” research report released by LNI.
“Our new research shows that nearly half of adult consumers in Southeast Asia are online 16 hours or more each week, outside of work, and they have high expectations for web-site performance, especially when it comes to e-commerce,” LNI Regional Sales Director Jaheer Abbas was quoted in a statement as saying.
People in the Philippines spend the most time online closely followed by those in Malaysia, according to LNI’s report. People in Singapore are online the least. In Thailand millennials are online the least, with 34 percent online 16 hours or more per week, compared to 42 percent for all other age groups.
The gap is even greater in the Philippines, where 39 percent of millennials versus 56 percent of all other age groups are online this amount of time.
Despite these differences, the report by the digital-content delivery company clearly illustrates the need for organizations to prioritize the optimization of mobile experiences, understand the expectations of consumers within each country rather than implementing a “one-size-fits-all” approach, and accelerate web-site performance to keep visitors engaged.
“Nearly everyone surveyed said that they’re likely to recommend a brand to a friend if they have a positive web experience, and on the flip side, that they’ll leave and go to a competitor if it isn’t a good experience,” Abbas said.
While there is a great deal of behavioral consistency throughout the region, some interesting regional differences were identified. Personalized web experiences were ranked as very important in all countries, but were slightly less so in Singapore.
LNI’s report is based on a survey of 1,600 consumers chosen at random in the Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines, aged 18 and over.
Nearly half (43 percent) of consumers surveyed said they will leave a web site and go to a competitor if a Web page takes too long to load.
Eighty-four percent of respondents report they expect equally fast load times on any device.
Most consumers (67 percent) surveyed want a web site to remember them and make recommendations based on previous visits.