PH E-commerce Sales Expected To Hit ₱969B In 2026

Data and analytics firm GlobalData said that e-commerce sales in the Philippines are expected to reach ₱969 billion by 2026 as more consumers prefer shopping on online channels.

“The Philippines will continue to witness high growth in e-commerce sales and increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.9 percent between 2022 and 2026 to reach P968.9 billion ($19.0 billion) in 2026,” Shivani Gupta, senior banking and payments analyst at GlobalData said.

“The Philippines is one of the fastest growing e-commerce markets in Southeast Asia, supported by high internet and smartphone penetration. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the shift in consumer preference from brick-and-mortar to online channels,” Gupta said.

Gupta also mentioned that government initiatives boosted e-commerce growth by encouraging small and medium enterprises to use the benefits of e-commerce for the economy.

GlobalData expects the Philippine e-commerce market to grow by 22.9% to ₱615.7 billion from ₱500.9 billion last year.

GlobalData’s 2022 Financial Services Consumer survey found that about 90% of Filipino consumers have opted to shop online in the past six months, while only 6% have not made online purchases.

The survey also revealed that card payments were the most preferred payment option for e-commerce purchases in the Philippines with 51% of total transactions recorded last year.

Aside from card payments and their value-added benefits, alternative payment tools like GCash, PayPal, and PayMaya, were the second most-preferred payment channels, with a 24.5% share of total transaction value last year.

“Emergence of new payment models such as buy now pay later (BNPL), which allows consumers to split total purchase amount into installments are some of the factors supporting alternative payments growth,” Gupta said.

BNPL services in the country are offered by Atome, BillEase, Akulaku, Cashalo, UnaPay, TendoPay, and the e-commerce platform Lazada.

Although electronic payments are on the rise, GlobalData said over 15% of e-commerce purchases in the Philippines would still prefer cash payments, showing the traditional preference for cash due to the highly unbanked population and limited financial awareness, especially among the rural population.

Source: Philstar