The Philippine E-Commerce Association said it expects to see a sustained growth this year as more Filipinos turn to online shopping.
PECA president Jere Von Basa told reporters the e-commerce industry in the Philippines would continue to grow faster this year and beyond.
“Right now, we have about eight million online sellers in the Philippines, and based on the DTI [Department of Trade and Industry] data, the industry’s monthly sales range between P2 billion and P3 billion,” Basa said.
“The growing trend of e-commerce in the Philippines has brought good news to many establishments, as well as more challenges, primarily on security and fraud,” he said.
Basa said inadequate access to finance remained a major obstacle for micro, small and medium enterprises, particularly online sellers.
Data from the DTI showed that 99.5 percent of companies in the Philippines were MSMEs as of last year.
“These are just among the top concerns PECA would like to address as it sees that e-commerce in the country will continue to prosper in the coming years,” Basa said.
The Philippine Statistics Authority earlier reported that the country’s digital economy amounted to P2.08 trillion, contributing 9.4 percent to the gross domestic product in 2022. The amount represented an increase of 11 percent from P1.87 trillion in 2021.
The digital economy is composed of digital transactions covering digital-enabling infrastructure, e-commerce and digital media/content.
E-commerce, with 20-percent share in the total digital economy in 2022, grew by 26.5 percent from its previous year’s record of P328.84 billion. Of the total amount of digital transactions in 2022, digital-enabling infrastructure made up the largest share amounting to P1.60 trillion or 77.2 percent.
The estimated number of employed persons in the digital economy was 6.05 million in 2022, up by 8.2 percent from 5.59 million in 2021.