Southeast Asia is the world’s fastest-growing region for mobile wallets, followed by Latin America and Africa & Middle East, research from London-based fintech company Boku Inc. shows.
The number of mobile wallets in use will grow 311% from 2020 to almost 440 million by 2025 across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, reflecting an e-commerce boom, according to a global study on the industry, which was published on Thursday in partnership with Juniper Research Ltd. The usage in Latin America is set to expand 166% during the same period, while that in Africa and Middle East will grow 147%.
Mobile wallets overtook credit cards to become the most widely used payment type globally in 2019, according to the report, and adoption accelerated during the pandemic. There were more than 2.8 billion mobile wallets in use at the end of 2020, and that’s projected to increase 74% to 4.8 billion by the end of 2025.
