BNPL sales seen surging by 173%

BUY NOW, PAY LATER (BNPL) sales in the Philippines are expected to increase by 173% in 2024, driven mainly by mobile transactions, a study by financial solutions provider UnaCash showed.

“Buy Now, Pay Later is consistently on the rise… This can be regarded as a modern digital-era payment solution, not just in the Philippines, which offers convenience to both consumers and its partner merchants by minimizing the initial cost of purchases. Innovative upgrades like point-of-sale loans will allow this payment method to experience remarkable growth in the years to come,” UnaCash President Aleksei Kosenko said in a statement on Tuesday.

BNPL has become a tool that Filipinos use frequently to shop, with 15% of all online transactions in the country done using these options, UnaCash noted.

The expected growth in the gross merchandise value of items bought using BNPL options next year would be faster than the estimated 154% rise in BNPL use for this year, but slightly slower than the 178% increase in 2021.

The faster rise seen next year could come on the back of an expected 84% growth in the e-commerce market in 2024, which UnaCash said would be driven by increasing mobile commerce usage.

Mobile commerce (m-commerce) refers to transactions done using devices like smartphones or tablets.

The share of m-commerce in the e-commerce industry grew to a “historical high” of 74% in 2022 from just 16% in 2018, it said.

By next year, the share of m-commerce in the industry is expected to reach 80%, UnaCash said.

The use of m-commerce doubled from 2018 to 2022, growing by an average of 6% per year, it said.

“By the end of 2022, more than half of the Philippine population was involved in mobile commerce, with penetration reaching 55%… The largest increase in the indicator was observed in 2020, at 12% — primarily due to the impact of the pandemic,” UnaCash added.

Meanwhile, m-commerce sales value posted an average annual growth of 47.4% from 2018 to 2022.

“The most significant surge occurred in 2019, with a remarkable increase of 63.4% in sales through m-commerce, signifying a 4.7-fold increase or an equivalent of P243.3 billion. By 2022, it was worth P308.7 billion,” it said.

“The e-commerce audience in the Philippines, predominantly mobile, are persons aged 25-34 years old, making up more than 30% of users, followed by those aged 18-24 years,” it said. — AMCS