November 29, 2022
JAKARTA – The latest study found that the majority of Indonesians use electronic wallet (e-wallet) more often than cash, with GoPay currently leading the sector, followed by OVO, Dana and ShopeePay.
Entitled “Consistency That Leads: 2023 E-Wallet Industry Outlook”, the study was done by InsightAsia, a private-research firm specializing in the Southeast Asian market, and published on Monday.
“Just being there is not enough. Just being a pioneer is not enough,” said InsightAsia research director Olivia Samosir on how to stay competitive in the industry.
The survey was conducted from Sept. 19-30 in the Greater Jakarta area; Bandung, West Java; Medan, North Sumatra; Makassar, South Sulawesi; Semarang, Central Java; Palembang, South Sumatra; and Pekanbaru, Riau, involving 1,300 respondents where each one of them could pick more than one option.
For various transactions, 71 percent of respondents surveyed are in favour of using e-wallet rather than cash (49 percent) or bank transfer (24 percent).
Twenty-1 percent of the respondents use QRIS (Indonesian standardized QR), 18 percent use Paylater, 17 percent use debit cards, while virtual-account transfer is used by 16 percent.
The study also found that consumers have been consistently using GoPay for the past five years, as 71 percent of respondents said they had used the e-wallet platform, and 58 percent had done so within the past 3 months.
OVO fell just one percentage point behind GoPay with 70 percent saying they had used it, and 53 percent claiming they had used it within the past three months.
Dana was crowned third place at 61 percent, and yet it did not win third-best in terms of past-3-month usage.
Instead, 51 percent of the respondents had used ShopeePay in the past three months, but the platform did not make it into the big three of overall Indonesian usage.
“There are five central factors that set an e-wallet platform up to be the market leader: namely safety, protection, ease and comfort, free monthly limit as well as its relevance for day-to-day usage,” said Olivia.
The research found that GoPay is leading in all five matrices, resulting in 84 percent of its customers being satisfied. Trailing closely behind, OVO received 80-percent satisfaction, while Dana got 75 percent.
“Winning consumer preference cannot be achieved within a short time period. It must be supported by performance consistency,” Olivia said, adding, “Consistency in delivering [customer] needs is the one factor that will create a positive consumer experience, which will make the users loyal to the brands.”
Admittedly, GoPay and OVO managed to score better thanks to their integration with a wider ecosystem.
About 61 percent of the respondents said that they are actively using two to three e-wallet platforms. LinkAja, one of the e-wallet pioneers, fell short on the research due to low levels of usage.