Business In Indonesia Today
Date : 01 April 2014 | Indonesia
Investments
Domestic Consumption, Smartphones and Social Media in Indonesia
The
high level of consumption in Indonesia is remarkable. In fact, household
consumption in Indonesia is an important engine of economic expansion in
Southeast Asia’s largest economy as it accounts for about 55 percent of
economic growth. One of the most popular consumption products are gadgets, in
particular mobile gadgets. Just take a look in urban environments in Indonesia;
everywhere people are holding, playing with, and communicating through some
sort of mobile technological device.
According
to data from Mediacells, Indonesia is positioned within the top ten of the
world's smartphone market based on sales volume. Smartphone sales in Indonesia
are predicted to reach 46 million in 2014. About 39.8 million of these sales
involve new smartphones.
One
of the reasons that explain Indonesia’s high smartphone sales is that the
smartphone is no longer a luxury item that can only be afforded by the
upper-middle class and elite circles. Due to the influx of various smartphone
brands on the Indonesian market, and which cover a whole range of prices, many
Indonesians can now afford a smartphone. Local mobile phone brands are more
encouraged to compete with international brands, offering high-tech smartphone
products at a cheaper price.
The
introduction of the smartphone caused that Indonesians are no longer using the
mobile phone simply as a device to send a SMS message or to make a phone call.
Communication through a variety of social networks has become increasingly
popular. Facebook, for example, said that the number of users in Indonesia has
reached tens of millions of people. At end-2013, the number of monthly
registered active users (meaning that they open Facebook at least once per
month) stood at 65 million, while the number of daily active users was 33
million. This makes Indonesia the fourth largest Facebook community after the
United States, India and Brazil. Interestingly, 86 percent of all Indonesian
Facebook users use a mobile device to access their account.
Due
to the Indonesia's great potential - as 80 percent of the population is still
not connected to the Internet - Facebook intends to strengthen its business in
this country. Facebook has set up a representative office in Indonesia’s
capital city of Jakarta with the aim to establish better communication with a
number of sides, including the country's small, medium and large businesses.
Particularly the small and mid-sized enterprises are increasingly using Facebook
as a tool to market their products. Facebook also aims to build a good
relationship with the Indonesian government. This is evidenced by the meeting
between officials of Facebook and the Vice Governor of Jakarta at City Hall on
20 March 2014.
But
not only Facebook is targeting for business expansion in Indonesia. South
Korean-based mobile applications and mobile social messaging platform KakaoTalk
has the same ambition. The management of KakaoTalk said that Indonesia is its
second-largest market, after South Korea. In 2013, the number of Indonesians
that use this new application was only 500 thousand people. However, around the
end of February 2014, the number has reached 16 million. A growth of about
3,000 percent. Therefore, KakaoTalk wants to provide the best services to its
Indonesian fan base. For example, it wants to apply a specific technology in
order to provide fast delivery of messages despite the current 2G or EDGE
network conditions.
Line,
a chat application from Japan, also expressed optimism on their business in
Indonesia. Based on information from Line published on the website
techinasia.com (dated early February), the number of Line users in Indonesia
has exceeded 20 million people (and approximately 350 million users globally).
After Japan (50 million users) and Thailand (22 million), Indonesia comes
third.
Regarding
the more professional social application of LinkedIn, the Asia-Pacific region
(including Indonesia) contributed significantly to its growing number of users.
Based on information from LinkedIn in mid-February, the number of users has
reached 50 million in the Asia-Pacific region. There are nine countries in the
Asia-Pacific region that have more than one million LinkedIn users. These are
India (over 24 million), Australia (over 5 million), China (over 4 million),
Indonesia and the Philippines (each more than 2 million). Meanwhile Japan,
Singapore, Malaysia, and New Zealand all have more than one million users. The
fact that Indonesia has more LinkedIn users than Singapore (a much more
developed country), is a clear sign that Indonesian people continue to show and
develop their existence in cyberspace, both informally and professionally. It
also happens more frequently that job applications are conducted through
LinkedIn. It is certainly handy for those who are looking for employees,
because through LinkedIn, a record of experience and educational background of
job seekers can be read.
Seeing
the current trends of Indonesian society in relation to the active use of
social networks, many companies are trying to tap this market in order to
generate profit. Besides communication, social networking can also be used for
promotion, sales, and even for politics.
In my opinion the people of Indonesia and even around the world
today is highly dependent on the smarthphone and social
media. This dikarekan
technological advances are happening right now. With the smartphone and social
media now everyone can communicate quickly with services disediadan
by the smartphone.
Internet presence in the smartphone
making characteristics of corrected mass communication.
Now, mass communication is no longer a one-way
communication intact. Each
communicant can provide
immediate response after receiving the message, then the response
will be responded back by the communicators.
In essence, there is a dialogue that occurs in
mass communication. Although the
dialogue does not
happen properly direct
two-way communication. The use of
the senses which was originally limited to correction. Now,
through the internet, the senses communicant progress in
its use. Not just one or two senses are used.
Smartphones are the result of
the evolution of forms of electronic communication
tools. If the first means of
electronic communication in the form of a fixed line that can not be taken anywhere
and used only to send voice, mobile phone
turns into a more mobile and not be able to make phone
calls but also send text. Until
eventually currently a smartphone that has more applications and facilities
than regular cell phones. Smartphones can
be said as luxury items because
basically people are still
many who use only
smartphones as part
of a lifestyle, looks, trends and prestige.
Sumber :
http://www.indonesia-investments.com/doing-business/business-columns/domestic-consumption-smartphones-and-social-media-in-indonesia/item1828
Nama : Riana Ismiani
NPM : 15210875
Kelas : 4 EA19
Tugas Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2
