Filipinos spent over Php329 billion in e-commerce in 2021

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the digital economy in 2021 reached an amount of Php1.87USD 0.03INR 3EUR 0.03CNY 0.23 trillion (about 9.6% of the Philippine GDP). This figure is 7.8% higher than the Php 1.73USD 0.03INR 2EUR 0.03CNY 0.21 trillion recorded in 2020.

Contributing to this growth is the e-commerce sector with a total transaction of Php329USD 6INR 475EUR 5CNY 41 billion (17.6%). This represents all the transactions we do on Lazada, Shopee, Tiktok Shop, GrabMart, FoodPanda, and the likes.

Source: PSA

On the other hand, transactions for digital media/content reached Php52.4USD 0.89INR 76EUR 0.85CNY 7 billion (2.8%) which could include payments for online streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Vivamax, etc.

With the Php1.87USD 0.03INR 3EUR 0.03CNY 0.23 trillion value of 2021, the digital economy seems to be back on track to the pre-pandemic levels (pretty close to 2019 levels and certainly better than 2018 figures).

Remember the move by Congress to tax digital services? Well, the figures here certainly shows how much revenue the government will get from e-commerce and digital cotnent thru the imposition of a 12% VAT.