The report forecast that the country’s digital economy will see a growth rate of 31 percent this year over the same period last year, reaching 21 billion USD. This is welcoming in the context of the shrinking online travel market. If this growth is maintained, Vietnam's GMV is expected to reach 57 billion USD by 2025.
Since COVID-19 reappeared in the first half of this year, the country has added 8 million digital consumers, of whom more than half come from non-metro areas. Notably, 99 percent of these new consumers expressed their intention to continue using online services post-pandemic, showing a very high level of adoption of digital services and products of users in our country.
Thirty percent of digital merchants believe that they would not have survived the pandemic if not for digital platforms. Digital financial services are also becoming critical enablers, with 99 percent of digital merchants now accepting digital payments and 72 percent having adopted digital lending solutions. Many are also embracing digital tools to engage with their customers, with 72 percent expecting to increase usage of digital marketing tools in the next five years.
The report also assesses that Vietnam remains an attractive innovation hub as global capital continues to pour in. Investments and deals soared in the first half of 2021 to a record high of 1.37 billion USD, surpassing full-year investments in recent years, fuelled by investment interest in digital start-ups in the fields of e-commerce, fintech, healthtech and edtech. As for Southeast Asia, the report highlights that the region is on track to become a GMV worth 1 trillion USD digital economy by 2030. The main driver of this is more than 440 million internet users, including 350 million of the region's digital consumers.
Since the start of the pandemic, Southeast Asia has added 60 million new digital consumers, of whom 20 million joined in the first half of this year. Driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, Southeast Asian digital consumers have spent more on online services. As a result, Southeast Asia's GMV is estimated to reach 174 billion USD by the end of the year, expected to surpass 360 billion USD by 2025, higher than the previous forecast at 300 billion USD./.
