The Phillippines ranked above India, Indonesia in B2C ecommerce Index

For the second consecutive year, Luxembourg is the top performer country. Among the top 10 economies, six are European, three are from the Asia-Pacific region and one is from North America, businessmirror.com reports. Among developing economies, three high-income economies – Republic of Korea, Hong Kong (China) and Singapore – rank the highest, followed by several Gulf States, according to B2C Ecommerce Index 2016.

The UNCTAD includes the Philippines among the top 10 economies in its index of the Developing Asia and Oceania region. The Republic of Korea tops this region, while India is at the tail end. The Philippines’s internet users (2014 or latest) reached 40% of total population than India`s 18%, Indonesia`s 17%, and Thailand`s 35%. However, all these countries are outscored by Vietnam (48%) and Malaysia (68%). Meanwhile, the share of individuals with credit card in the Philippines was lower than India`s 4% and Thailand`s 6% of population. In terms of secure internet servers per 1 million people, the Philippines ties with Vietnam (52%) and is higher than India`s 46% and Indonesia`s 47%. Malaysia had 69% secure internet servers per 1 million people, while Thailand had 58% in 2014.

“Given that consumers seem to prefer a mix of options besides home delivery or post office retrieval, an indicator based on the number of post offices may be limiting,” the UNCTAD report said. “In some developing countries, courier outlets have been growing and now exceed traditional postal locations.”

UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD ) Ecommerce Index 2016, which measures the readiness of countries to engage in B2C online commerce, is composed of four indicators: internet use penetration, secure servers per 1 million inhabitants, credit-card penetration, and a postal reliability score. The 2016`s index increased the geographic coverage, from 130 to 137 economies, which represent 96% of the world population and 99% of world`s GDP.