Global FMCG online sales grew by 26% in 2016

E-commerce now contributes to 35% of global FMCG growth

In South Korea, online sales reached a staggering 19.7% of the FMCG market share in 2016 making it the number one e-commerce market in the world

Kantar Worldpanel’s quarterly FMCG E-commerce Index reveals the global and Asia growth of the FMCG e-commerce market. In 2016, global FMCG online sales grew by 26%, with e-commerce now contributing to 35% of global FMCG growth.

Sales continue to rise, particularly in Asia’s most advanced e-commerce markets, such as South Korea, China, and Taiwan where online grew its share from 14.6%, 4% and 4.5% to 19.7%, 5.7% and 5.7% last year.

In 2016, FMCG e-commerce growth was highest in the most mature markets in Asia: China (+53%) and South Korea (+40%).

Table 1: E-commerce value share per markets
(Percentage of e-commerce FMCG purchases vs. total consumers’ FMCG purchases across all channels)

Table 2. Evolution of consumers’ online purchases of FMCG products in value in 2016. In percentage.

Kantar Worldpanel identifies three key e-commerce markets: advanced, mature and emerging. South Korea leads the advanced market, where almost 70% of the population is shopping online more than once per month. Mainland China and Taiwan sit within the mature market where online is reaching more than 25% of the population.

The proportion of the population that has purchased FMCG goods online at least once per year is steadily increasing across the region.

Table 3. Percentage of households that buy online FMCG products at least once a year. In 2016.

Frequency in online shopping is also increasing on a global scale, with people in S. Korea shopping online an average of 15.2 times a year, up from 12.7 in 2015, China 6.1 times a year, up from 5 in 2015.

Table 4. Number of purchases per year per household using the online channel for FMCG products.

Whilst frequency of online shopping is on the rise, the average spend per shopping occasion remains much higher than offline, with the average online spend twice as high in South Korea and Taiwan.

Table 5. Spend per online FMCG purchase in US Dollars. Index mean how many times the online ticket was higher than the offline one.

Marcy Kou, CEO at Kantar Worldpanel Asia
“Asia has been leading the e-commerce market for the past decade, where South Korea is the world’s largest market by value share and China makes more online purchases than anywhere else in the world. While many other developing markets in the region still rely on more traditional trade and have very low online purchase, chances are they might skip over the stage of modern trade altogether in the process of development and head straight to online.”

Links to Vietnam's E-commerce here.

Vietnam means Urban 4 key cities (Ho Chi Minh, Ha Noi, Da Nang and Can Tho).

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