Vietnam tops online shopping in Southeast Asia: Report

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ANKARA (AA) – Amid a surge in online shopping due to COVID-19 restrictions, e-commerce retail jumped 18% in Vietnam last year, placing it top among all countries in Southeast Asia, local media reported on Friday.

Some 49.3 million people in Vietnam used online shopping portals in 2020, according to the latest data released by the Vietnam E-Commerce and Digital Economy Agency (IDEA), state-run Vietnam News Agency reported.

E-commerce volume in the country of some 97 million people rose to $11.8 billion last year, the data showed.

According to DataReportal, Vietnam currently has around 68.72 million internet users.

The number of internet users in Vietnam surged by 551,000 between 2020 and 2021, a rise of 0.8% that puts the overall internet penetration in the country at 70.3%, the group said in a report released earlier this year.

Vietnam also has some 154.4 million mobile connections in use, which increased by 1.3 million between January 2020 and January 2021, the data showed.