India: mobile shopping gets the customers backing - report

In India, the ability to shop on-the-go is covered by 47.7% of the e-shoppers, according to the MasterCard `Online Shopping Survey 2014`. The growing availability of apps that makes it easier to shop (45.3%) and convenience (38.1%) have emerged as the most compelling reasons for driving smartphoneshopping.

Mobile phones and gadget apps (28.8%) topped the list of items purchased through smartphones, followed by tickets for cinema/movie theatres (26.7%) and clothing / fashion accessories (24%). As for the online transactions, debit cards and cash are the most used payment methods. Mobile banking apps have the highest awareness-familiarity levels (38.3%) followed by in-app shopping (28.7%) and digital wallets (24.4%).

The report for the Asia Pacific region included interviews with 7,000 respondents from 14 markets aged 18-64 years, who were asked about their online shopping habits. The number of Indian respondents who have made at least one purchase in the last three months, has increased from 70.9%in 2012 to 94% in 2014. China continues to lead the chart among mobile shoppers with 70.1% of the respondents polled having used the device to make online purchases. India (62.9%) and Taiwan (62.6%) follow next with Thailand (58.8%) and Indonesia (54.9%) rounding off the top five.

The MasterCard Online Shopping Behaviour Survey, which serves as a benchmark measuring consumers’ propensity to shop online, was conducted across 25 markets between October and December 2014. The survey covers 14 countries across Asia Pacific.

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