Pinoy millennials spend the most time online

Study on Southeast Asia

In Southeast Asia, Filipino millennials spend the most time online closely followed by Malaysians while Singaporeans spend the least time online, according to the most recent “State of the User Experience” report of global digital content delivery firm, Limelight Networks.

Significantly, smartphones are the go-to device for accessing the Internet throughout the region and consumers expect fast performance of websites across all devices, according to the report based on a survey of 1,600 consumers aged 18 and above, chosen at random in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines.

Thai millennials are online the least, with 34 percent online 16 hours or more a week versus 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.

“Our new research shows that nearly half of adult consumers in South East Asia are online 16 hours or more each week, outside of work, and they have high expectations for website performance, especially when it comes to e-commerce,” explained Jaheer Abbas, Limelight Regional Sales Director.

“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,” he added.

While the region showed a great deal of behavioral consistency, the study identified interesting regional differences.

All countries ranked personalized web experiences as "very important" but in Singapore, it was slightly less so. Also, while the majority of respondents regionally will abandon a website if the experience is slow, there is slightly more tolerance in the Philippines.

Despite the differences, the report underscored that organizations should optimize mobile experiences. They should likewise understand the expectations of consumers within each country rather than implementing a “one-size-fits-all” approach and accelerate website performance to keep visitors engaged.

The report also highlighted the performance impact on e-commerce sales, with nearly half, or 43 percent of consumers surveyed leaving a website and going to a competitor if a webpage takes too long to load.

Websites should load quickly on all connected devices, according to the report, with 84 percent of respondents maintaining they expect equally fast load times on any device.

Furthermore, people come to websites for the content. Social media is the top online activity closely followed by online video and fresh and updated content ranks as the top expectation for web experiences.

Finally, consumers want personalization website experiences. The bulk of consumers, 67 percent of those surveyed, want a website to remember them and make recommendations based on previous visits.