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Cambodia: Chinese firm mulls supporting e-commerce in Kingdom
With e-commerce in Cambodia likely to register a 13.51 percent compound annual growth rate in five years (up to 2027), foreign companies could be looking to be part of the growth story.
The e-commerce market in Cambodia is expected to be worth over $2.10 billion in 2027, according to research by statista.com, which makes it an interesting proposition for foreign companies.
Chinese technology firm Lanton Cloud Service Technology Co Ltd plans to promote e-commerce activities in Cambodia through its Lanton app. It has reportedly offered to promote Cambodian products in Chinese as well as other world markets and sought the government’s help to do that.
A Chinese delegation, led by Chairman of the Board of Lanton Cloud Service Technology Li Kun, reportedly made the suggestion during a courtesy visit to Minister of Commerce Pan Sorasak at his office recently.
Stressing the commitment to support the private sector for the growth of the economy, the Minister asked the Chinese team to work jointly with the Secretary of State for the Ministry of Commerce Sok Sopheak to further its aims.
Several foreign companies offer to handhold Cambodian e-commerce companies to build from the scratch. They offer to work on the website, sharpen payment methods, provide digital marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) services, and efficient shipping, among others.
SEO is the process of improving the quality and quantity of traffic to a website or a web page from search engines, and targets unpaid traffic rather than direct traffic or paid traffic.
“The e-commerce sector has been growing and will continue to expand in the coming years in Cambodia,” Penn Sovicheat, Undersecretary of State and Spokesman at the Ministry of Commerce, told Khmer Times.
With over 16.7 million population, which includes a sizeable chunk of youth, Cambodia is an emerging consumer market with a rapidly expanding e-commerce sector.
In five years, Cambodia is expected to have over 8.8 million e-commerce market users, and the user penetration is likely to grow from 40.1 percent in 2023 to 48.1 percent in 2027, according to the statista.com assessment. At the same time the average revenue per user is likely to increase to $181.50 by 2027, it added.
According to iTrade Bulletin of the Ministry of Commerce, the market value of e-commerce in Cambodia is estimated to be $1.11 billion in 2022, around $1.28 billion in 2023, about $1.50 billion in 2024, and $1.78 billion in 2025.
By mid-2022, around 55 percent of purchase orders on e-commerce sites were made through desktop personal computers, and over 45 percent of through tablets or smartphones, according to the iTrade Bulletin.
The Cambodian government views e-commerce as a potential sector to help support the economic recovery in the post-pandemic years, said the Ministry of Commerce official.
To support e-commerce like other businesses to facilitate cross-border trade, and increase local business activities of small and medium enterprises, the government has taken several policy measures, he added.
The government formulated laws on e-commerce and consumer protection in 2019, announced an e-commerce strategy in 2020, and adopted the law on competition in 2021.
According to market and media reports, the top e-commerce portals in Cambodia included Glad Market, Tenbox, DigitalRain, Mall855 Camboticket, MAIO Mall, RoseRb.com, Aliexpress, TaoBao, MyPhsar, BookMeBus, Nika and ECamShopping, among others.
Source: https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501218059/chinese-firm-mulls-supporting-e-commerce-in-kingdom/