Tag: Southeast Asia

Singapore – Internet users in Southeast Asia (SEA) rank among the top consumers of online short-form video content, according to a report from socially-led creative agency We Are Social and media intelligence company Meltwater.

We Are Social and Meltwater’s report reveals that SEA users consume more TikTok videos and reels over longer video content like vlogs. 

More specifically, internet users in the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia are among the top five countries globally who spend time watching short videos. Users in each country spend more than an hour a day watching them.

Filipinos spend nearly 10.5 hours weekly watching short-form videos while spending 9 hours and 14 minutes on longer content on average. 48.7% of Filipinos watch vlogs and influencer videos per week, significantly higher than the global average of 23.8%.

Meanwhile, Southeast Asians watch less television than other countries globally.

Social media use, gaming in SEA

A majority of the SEA population (70.4%) are social media users, spending an average of more than four days a week using various platforms. In the Philippines, users spend over 23 hours on social media every week, while Singaporeans only spend 11 hours and 38 minutes.

In Thailand and Malaysia, the weekly time spent on social media is over 18 hours, while Indonesians spend almost 16.5 hours. Vietnamese users spend under 14 hours on social media.

Social media users in the region spread their time across 7.10 platforms, higher than the global average of 6.86.

Additionally, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand are among the top gamers globally, with 93% of internet users in each nation playing video games. The figure is higher than the global average of 83.5%. 28.6% of adults in the Philippines and 27.1% in Vietnam are interested in esports.

Naiyen Wang, managing director, Southeast Asia at We Are Social, said, “Southeast Asia is home to some of the most diverse and unique digital behaviours in the world. The Digital 2025: April Statshot report highlights this, especially when it comes to how consumers engage with video content and why short-form and small screens play a starring role. With consumers in this region spreading their time across multiple platforms, it’s critical for brands to invest in a smart content strategy to ensure maximum exposure with their audience.”

Singapore – Sony Music Entertainment (SME) has named Kevin Foo its managing director for Southeast Asia (SEA), effective immediately. Foo is set to oversee the company’s operations across the Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand.

In his appointment, Foo will spearhead SME’s growth and engagement strategy while promoting artist development in key SEA markets. He is responsible for leading SME’s team, including general managers and other leaders.

Foo has held leadership roles in the music industry. Prior to the appointment, he served as managing director of RCA Records Greater China and general manager of SME Taiwan. Before joining SME, he led Beep Studios and co-founded indie label Umami Records.

Through the appointment, SME is strengthening its presence in a fast-moving market with Foo advancing SME’s vision in SEA for a strong local music ecosystem.

“Kevin has a unique ability to connect artists, markets, and audiences in ways that drive both commercial and cultural impact. His deep understanding of the region, coupled with his passion for artist development, makes him an ideal leader to shape the next phase of our Southeast Asia strategy,” Shridhar Subramaniam, president, Asia and Middle East of Sony Music Entertainment, said.

Foo commented, “I am honoured to take on this new role and look forward to building on SME’s strong foundation in the region. This is an exciting time for music in the region as we see local music like P-pop, Dangdut, and T-pop expand their reach internationally. I hope to work with our incredible artists and teams to create new opportunities, amplify voices, and shape the future of music here.”

Singapore – Havas Media Network Singapore has appointed Kenny Yap as chief executive officer (CEO) of Havas Play as part of its series of leadership changes to advance growth. The appointments are part of the agency’s efforts to innovate and strengthen its offerings.

Louise Koh has also been appointed as managing director of Havas Media Singapore, while Deanson Lee has been promoted to managing director, digital.

In his new role, Yap will lead Havas Play’s growth in Singapore, expanding its presence across Southeast Asia (SEA). Meanwhile, both Koh and Lee are responsible for strengthening Havas Media’s client relationships for business growth.

 Yap, Koh, and Lee will report to Pankaj Nayak, who was appointed as the CEO of Havas Media Network Singapore and president of Havas Media SEA in January.

“These promotions reflect our commitment to nurturing talent and building a strong leadership team for the future. Kenny, Deanson, and Louise have been instrumental in our success, demonstrating expertise, vision, and an unwavering drive to push boundaries. I have no doubt that under their leadership, our agencies will continue to thrive and set new benchmarks in the industry,” Nayak said.

He added, “I would also like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Russell for his contributions to the agency. His leadership and dedication have been instrumental to our progress, and we wish him the very best for his future endeavours.”

Philippines – Pop culture lifestyle brand Funko is set to open its first licensed store in Southeast Asia in June 2025. The store, to be established in the Philippines, is under the local retailer Funtastik Enterprises Corp.

The expansion in the region is part of Funko’s growth strategy, bringing the brand closer to fans internationally. With Filipinos ranking among the top most engaged Funko fans, the strategic move is expected to boost local engagement while attracting new fans.

Funtastik’s partnership with Funko reflects its expertise in the market, including its focus on customer service.

The Funko store will be located in SM Mall of Asia. The shop will be offering exclusive product launches and interactive areas. Various collectibles, including the Funko Pop, Bitty Pop, and Loungefly lines will be available in the store.

“As a global brand, Funko is committed to expanding our presence in the most engaged and fastest-growing fan communities. The Philippines is one of our strongest-performing markets in Asia, and this licensed store represents our investment in its passionate fanbase. We’ve seen remarkable success with similar stores in the Middle East, and we’re excited to bring that momentum here,” Cynthia Williams, CEO of Funko, Inc., said.

“By deepening our retail footprint and enhancing direct-to-consumer experiences, we hope to inspire connection, self-expression, and fun for our fans—wherever they are in the world,” Williams added.

Funko, based in America, manufactures various figures, plush, and apparel among others. It has one of the largest selection of pop culture licenses worldwide.

Southeast Asia – Dentsu has forged a partnership with Flipkart Commerce Cloud (FCC), the technology solutions arm of e-commerce marketplace Flipkart. The collaboration aims to revolutionise retail media networks for digital and omnichannel retailers in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong.

The partnership will see Dentsu incorporating Flipkart’s retail technology solutions into its integrated media, data, and creatives. It aims to help retailers enhance their retail media network strategies across seven markets.

FCC’s Retail Media Solution is available for retailers through their digital sites and app assets. Its suite of tech tools allows retailers and advertisers to create manage, and optimise ad campaigns.

The user-friendly, self-serve platform offers various advertising formats, retail-centric reporting, intuitive campaign creation, and measurement tools among others.

Praveen SNSS, senior director, Flipkart Commerce Cloud, said, “Our collaboration with dentsu marks a significant step in strengthening FCC’s Retail Media Solutions. As a strategic partner, dentsu brings deep expertise in media, data, and advertising, which aligns seamlessly with our mission to empower retailers with cutting-edge monetization capabilities. With FCC’s robust commerce technology and dentsu’s strategic vision and global reach, we aim to help retailers unlock new revenue streams, enhance shopper engagement, and drive measurable business outcomes.”

“Our unique partnership with FCC, the only joint offering of its kind in the region, marries the best in Retail Media Network with dentsu’s world-class integrated capabilities to offer a differentiated data- and tech-based solution that will truly drive scalable and connected growth for retailers in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. As one of the leading e-commerce providers in India, FCC is our trusted partner to bring this never-before offering together to this region,” Prakash Kamdar, CEO, client & solutions, SEA, dentsu, and CEO, Singapore, dentsu, commented.

Singapore – CARSOME Group has announced a multi-year collaboration to fuel CARSOME’s continued expansion and growth in the markets where it operates. With Google Cloud as its new preferred cloud provider, CARSOME aims to deliver more dynamic and differentiated car transaction and ownership experiences to drive its next phase of growth.

Said collaboration will use Google Cloud’s industry-leading platform services across modern infrastructure, cybersecurity, data analytics, and generative AI (GenAI) to further enhance the car transaction and ownership experience for consumers and used car dealers, thereby solidifying CARSOME’s position as a leading integrated car e-commerce platform in Southeast Asia.

The transition to a modern infrastructure cloud will ultimately increase the scale and velocity at which CARSOME delivers new and enhanced services through its digital applications (e.g., the CARSOME consumer app, CARSOME CARagent, CARSOME CARdealer), refurbishment facilities, inspection centers, and experience centers to better serve used car buyers, sellers, and dealers. 

To strengthen its security posture, uphold compliance requirements, and reinforce customer trust, CARSOME is leveraging Google Cloud’s built-in data access controls and Security Command Center for advanced threat detection and response across its consolidated cloud systems.

In addition to accelerated software development cycles and projected cost savings, CARSOME’s move to Google Cloud will give its teams access to granular insights that enable improved business decision-making and hyper-personalised customer engagement. This is the result of CARSOME’s first-party data being warehoused on Google Cloud’s BigQuery platform, integrated with Google Cloud’s Looker platform for business intelligence and Google Marketing Platform.

Through native integrations between BigQuery and Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform, CARSOME can centrally process and stream data in all formats (i.e., structured and unstructured) to enhance the performance of its existing AI applications.

Kjetil Rohde Jakobsen, group chief technology officer at CARSOME Group, said, “At CARSOME, we’ve been digitising the used car industry with the help of advanced technologies since 2015. With our business continuing to experience significant growth, we saw an opportunity to strengthen our digital foundation to better support our expanding operations and drive even greater efficiencies.”

He added, “Shifting from a multicloud environment to Google Cloud not only helps us realise cost savings due to its infrastructure’s better price-performance; it also allows us to access secure-by-design, full stack capabilities across data analytics and AI. This will enable our teams to deliver more dynamic and differentiated solutions and experiences for CARSOME customers and partners across the region, from car listings and discovery, to financing and transacting, to after-sales support.”

CARSOME is also taking advantage of BigQuery and Vertex AI Agent Builder to embed semantic search capabilities into its internal tools. This will enable employees across departments and functions to intuitively extract relevant information from CARSOME’s vast and continuously expanding enterprise knowledge base. With GenAI turning information retrieval tasks that take hours into quick searches or conversational exploration, marketing and product teams, for instance, can more easily create educational content and enhanced solutions to address the evolving needs of car buyers and sellers.

Meanwhile, Yash Thakker, director of solutions consulting for Asia-Pacific at Searce, commented, “We’re proud to be facilitating CARSOME’s cloud consolidation, which will optimise its cloud spend by as much as 30%. These cost savings can then be redeployed toward other strategic innovation initiatives that deliver top-line growth for the business, such as the potential development of next-generation conversational AI agents that autonomously and effectively handle common customer queries for relevant information, freeing up CARSOME’s customer support staff to address more complex issues. With a full team of certified in-house experts, Searce is well-positioned to support companies’ full-scale infrastructure migration to Google Cloud and the technical implementation of cutting-edge Google Cloud AI solutions.”

Lastly, Serene Sia, country director of Malaysia and Singapore at Google Cloud, stated, “By running its business on fully managed Google Cloud infrastructure that scales reliably to handle the increasing performance needs of any application, CARSOME can expand its operations with confidence, from increasing its penetration in existing markets, to expanding its inventory of pre-owned vehicles, to streamlining the movement of vehicles between inspection centers, refurbishment facilities, and customers. Together with Searce, we look forward to completing CARSOME’s cloud consolidation and advancing its innovation roadmap, which includes harnessing GenAI and agentic AI to create more personalised and seamless car transaction and ownership experiences, delivering new engines of growth for its business.”

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Maybank has announced a collaboration with TikTok Shop to launch a multi-market upskilling and digitalisation programme for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the ASEAN region. 

Said initiative marks the first partnership of its kind between a financial institution and TikTok Shop, aiming to empower SMEs with the knowledge, skills, and tools needed to transition beyond traditional brick-and-mortar models and drive business growth in the digital landscape.

The ASEAN SME Upskilling & Digitalisation Programme will begin with a pilot phase in Malaysia, featuring three key components: a webinar, a workshop, and an accelerator programme. Entrepreneurs participating in the accelerator phase will receive six months of tailored mentoring and coaching from both TikTok Shop and Maybank, with personalised business targets to support their expansion. 

The initial cohort will place a special focus on women entrepreneurs, in line with Maybank’s ongoing HERpower initiative. Over the next year, the programme is expected to expand to select ASEAN markets, with customised approaches tailored to local business environments.

Syed Ahmad Taufik Albar, group CEO of community financial services at Maybank, said that this collaboration is a reflection of Maybank’s commitment to champion SMEs in line with its M25+ strategy of purpose driven banking and beyond banking social impact programmes. Participants in this programme will gain valuable first-hand experience in leveraging content-driven e-commerce, digitalisation solutions, and optimised account management techniques.

“We believe entrepreneurs have the potential to create sustainable and lasting ripple effects to the communities they serve. By providing a holistic, values-driven ecosystem of solutions beyond traditional banking services, we hope to support and future-proof businesses at every stage of growth to be their own agents of change. We also aspire to collaborate with industry leaders who share a similar vision, and together create a multiplier effect in uplifting entrepreneurs in the region,” Taufik Albar said.

Meanwhile, Steven Li, senior director of global e-commerce strategy at TikTok Shop, shared his enthusiasm about the collaboration, commenting, “We are delighted to collaborate with Maybank to accelerate the growth of SMEs in Southeast Asia. It is a meaningful programme that showcases how collaborative industry efforts can drive real-life impact for small businesses in the region’s rapidly growing digital economy,” he said.

Lastly, Nur Azre Abdul Aziz, director of strategic partnerships at TikTok Shop Malaysia, stated, “We are thrilled to pilot this programme in Malaysia, which aims to empower women entrepreneurs with the resources and knowledge to thrive on TikTok Shop, in line with the nation’s effort to promote inclusive economic growth.”

India – Venturi Partners has announced the launch of its second fund, targeting $225 million with a hard cap of $250 million, to support high-growth consumer brands in India and Southeast Asia.

Building on its first fund, the new fund will continue Venturi’s strategy of investing in consumer brands that are reshaping their industries and developing products and services for the changing needs of Asian consumers.

Venturi aims for a first close of $130 million by June 2025, with backing from existing investors. The second fund will focus on high-growth sectors, including retail, education, healthcare, and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), across India and Southeast Asia.

Nicholas Cator, founder of Venturi Partners, said, “Our investment philosophy remains unchanged: backing brands that create meaningful change and deliver innovative solutions to consumers. We take an active ownership approach with our portfolio companies, working closely with founders to help unlock growth and scale their businesses. With this second fund, we are excited to continue partnering with ambitious entrepreneurs across the region.”

In April 2022, Venturi raised $180 million from prominent families in Europe and Asia. Its first fund invested in seven high-growth consumer companies across education, F&B subscription, beauty and personal care, retail, and home interiors, including Livspace, Country Delight, Believe, Pickup Coffee, DALI, K-12 Techno, and JQR.

Venturi takes a hands-on approach, working closely with management teams to scale operations and drive long-term growth. Its experience in identifying and expanding consumer businesses has established it as a key investment partner for founders in India and Southeast Asia.

Singapore – Oracle has announced the launch of its AI centre of excellence in Singapore to help organisations keep pace with the rapid advancements in AI. The Oracle AI Centre of Excellence will serve as a resource and hub for innovation and collaboration, bringing together leaders at the forefront of AI to drive AI adoption and success across Southeast Asia.

Backed by Oracle’s team of experts and an extensive network of partners, the centre is designed to equip organisations with the tools and expertise needed to upskill teams, explore AI-driven solutions, and modernise critical business operations. 

Through specialised training programs and certifications offered by Oracle University and its ecosystem partners, organisations will have the opportunity to develop expertise in the latest cloud and AI technologies. This initiative aligns with Oracle’s pledge to train 10,000 students and professionals in Singapore by 2027.

The centre also serves as a hub for AI experimentation, allowing businesses to test early-stage AI innovations in a secure cloud environment powered by Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. 

With applications spanning industries such as the public sector, healthcare, finance, and telecommunications, organisations can explore cutting-edge AI solutions, including autonomous AI, generative AI, machine learning, and AI-driven analytics. Additionally, the Centre provides a platform for organisations to develop proof-of-concept projects, enabling them to assess AI solutions before full-scale deployment.

By leveraging Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite, enterprises can rapidly integrate predictive, generative, and agent-based AI into essential business functions such as finance, HR, supply chain, sales, and customer service. These AI-driven enhancements aim to boost productivity, reduce operational costs, and improve both employee and customer experiences. With the launch of the AI Centre of Excellence, Oracle continues to strengthen its role in advancing digital innovation and AI adoption across Southeast Asia.

Dr Tan See Leng, Minister for Manpower and Second Minister for Trade and Industry, Singapore, said, “To remain economically competitive, we need to build an agile and adaptable workforce that is equipped to leverage new technology effectively. The new Oracle AI Centre for Excellence is a good example of how businesses can take the lead in workforce transformation, empowering our workers to become future-ready.”

Meanwhile, Garrett Ilg, executive vice president of Oracle Japan & Asia Pacific, commented, “AI will fuel the next wave of opportunity and growth. The Oracle AI Centre of Excellence will empower individuals and organizations of all sizes across Southeast Asia with cutting-edge cloud and AI technologies, world-class training, and a dynamic environment for experimentation and innovation. It further strengthens our commitment to train thousands of students and professionals in Singapore and provide readily-available digital talent for the local workforce.”

Singapore – Singaporean bank POSB is promoting better financial habits in its latest campaign in collaboration with creative agency The Secret Little Agency.

The campaign builds on the bank’s efforts to advance financial wellness amongst Singaporean consumers.

At the heart of the campaign is a film exploring the theme of life, shown through the lens of death. Directed by Thanonchai Sornsriwichai, it follows the relationship of a mother and her son, their story reminding viewers to honour life with good financial habits.

The film also intends to break the concept of financial planning as intimidating as it focuses on relatable characters.

POSB’s campaign follows the release of the Ministry of Finance’s Singapore Budget 2025 in February, which aims to strengthen Singapore’s economic resilience while investing in its future growth. The statement, delivered by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, invited Singaporeans to reevaluate their money habits to manage their expenses well. 

A DBS study also prompted the campaign, which found that Gen Zs and millennials are falling behind in investing for their future.

“Through this film, we aim to broaden the concept of self-care to include prioritising our financial well-being. We have a responsibility not just to ourselves, but also to our loved ones, to plan our finances effectively and ensure a comfortable retirement. This is not a burden we want to place on those we care about. Neglecting our own financial wellness, even with the intention of caring for others, should not be seen as a selfless sacrifice. It is an important reminder that small, thoughtful steps can make a powerful impact, especially when it comes to managing money,” Lim Bee Bee, head of marketing at DBS Consumer Banking Group, said.

“The unavoidable truth is that financial planning is the most powerful act of care that impacts not only ourselves but our loved ones too. We were often told this as kids, yet in the hustle and bustle of life, we’ve forgotten that the simple act of building good money habits goes a long way for our future,” Nicholas Ye and Mavis Neo, co-chief creative officers at The Secret Little Agency, commented.

“We saw a need to shift our focus back to create a nationwide movement centred around good financial habits that will serve us not only today but for the rest of our lives,” they added.