Millennials driving e-commerce growth

DIGITAL services provider PayMaya said on Wednesday it recorded a three-fold increase in online transactions for the last two months of 2017, with its millennial account holders driving the growth.

Paolo Azzola, chief operating PayMaya Philippines, said in a statement the country continues to witness a booming e-commerce industry as more and more digital companies introduce promotional offers and sale events.

He said that during November to December, e- commerce platforms Lazada, Zalora and Takatack launched big online sales, noting PayMaya also provided its users with a 20 percent exclusive discount to encourage them more to shop online.

“While mall shopping is still the norm for most Filipinos, we saw a marked increase in online shopping among our mostly millennial user base during the 2017 holiday season,” Azzola said.

“On top of the online promo offerings, convenience and the are probably compelling more individuals to do their shopping online,” he added.

PayMaya said the growth seen in the local e-commerce sector should be contributed to the introduction of prepaid e-wallets regulated by the central bank.

“These digital wallets foster phone user in the Philippines can create an account and use it for online transactions up to a certain amount limit,” it said.

It stressed the Philippine government, supported by banks and e- money issuers like PayMaya, remains bullish it can increase cashless transactions to 20 percent of the total payment transactions by 2020.

PayMaya is the digital payment services unit of Voyager Innovations Inc., the digital innovations arm of PLDT Inc.