Six
out of 10 Malaysians used the Internet as of December last year, which
translates to about 17.5 million people.
According to the 10th Malaysia Plan (2011-2015),
the number of Internet users is expected to reach 20 million by next year and
close to 25 million by 2015, covering about three-quarters of the population.
Mobile penetration, meanwhile, is beyond the
total population, which tells us that some Malaysians own more than one mobile
phone.
With the smartphone market share expanding
steadily in the country, online business has ample room to grow.
However, many businesses especially the small-
and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are still not seizing the opportunities by
going online.
Google’s president of Asia-Pacific and Japan
operations, Daniel Alegre, said every business is an online business or at
least has an online potential for business.
The key to online business is to have a
website and advertise, he said, adding that businesses need to know their
target audience and advertise their products online.
“It actually works really well for SMEs. In
the past, SMEs did not have access to the entire economy. But now because the
Internet is so pervasive throughout Malaysian consumers and world’s consumers,
SMEs have a way to be able to compete against the larger much better finance
businesses; and it really is a very simple thing to have a website and
advertise,” Alegre said in an interview with Business Times.
Alegre said the current 130 per cent mobile
penetration rate indicates that consumers in Malaysia are very active on the
Internet, highly mobile and connected through mobile phone.
What is missing in Malaysia, Alegre said, is
those who are going to provide goods and services for the very active user
base.
“A consumer is no longer an offline consumer,
especially here in Malaysia,” he said.
Alegre believes that online has to be an
integral part of any business strategy as it opens up to the entire global consumers
to the products and services offered by the businesses.
According to him, Google can help local
businesses, especially SMEs to take advantage of the World Wide Web.
Besides providing training for the SMEs to get
online, Google also supports all the online initiatives that SMEs might want to
have.
Among the tools offered by the online search
engine include Google Places and Click-to-Call.
Alegre said Google Places allows businesses to
place information about themselves online, while Click-to-Call enables
businesses to place an ad without having a website.
“A call will be automatically placed to the
business when customers click on the ad,” he added.
He said with tools like Google Analytics,
businesses can target specific users and measure the number of times a consumer
clicks on the ad and how many customers a business gets by placing the ad.
According to Alegre, online advertisement
changes the traditional advertising paradigm.
Businesses can set their own budget and modify
the ads whenever they want. They need to pay only when the ads are clicked.
“It actually gives you the flexibility that no
other campaign will give you because all the others like television or radio
are upfront investments, whereas here, it’s little incremental investments you
make and you can modify the ads very quickly,” he said.
Online advertising can help businesses
generate more revenue and return on investment. However, online advertising in
Malaysia represents a mere 1 per cent, or about RM52 million, of total media
advertising expenditure
BTimes
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