MPE&VCA founding member, Emerging Markets Entrepreneurs (EME) convened their 2nd Anniversary virtually on December 17, bringing their portfolio companies leading their respective industries online to engage in a wide-ranging discussion around e-commerce, classified car business, telemedicine, and animation.
EME recently conducted a survey with a wide range of their customers, e-tailers, and logistics companies on the e-commerce industry in Myanmar and will make its e-commerce report available on its website by Q1 of 2021.
EME predicts that with a total of approximately 25,000 packages delivered every day in Myanmar, the e-commerce business could amount to a total market size of between $150-200 million, which does not take into account on-demand meals. By 2025, Myanmar’s e-commerce market could reach over $400 million.
Some interesting findings include that: people are buying more of their groceries online this year; fashion and personal care products are the ones consumers choose to buy more through a range of different platforms; ease to buy and communicate with sellers is an important reason for people choosing Facebook to shop; more frequent online shoppers were more likely to use Wave Money to make payments.
With growth potential for the consumer market, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed a path for consumers to adopt use of digital platforms, which without COVID, could take more time for the users in Myanmar to grasp.
Later in its online event, EME featured talks with its portfolio companies that have made significant gains during the pandemic period in Myanmar.
Kyarlay
The omni-channel mum and baby retailer is handling same-day-delivery to 22 townships in Yangon using 11 delivery trucks from its four physical stores. Starting with an e-commerce platform in 2016, the pandemic has led Soe Lin Myat, founder of Kyarlay to shift more of his focus onto quality customer service, which led its online sales to increase three times during the period from February to November 2020. In-app sales saw 17 times growth compared to January 2019. With success for its private-label diapers, the company is looking at producing more of its Kyarlay private-label products.
MyanCare
A platform to consult health professionals online, MyanCare became a useful and reliable telemedicine platform for people living in the rural and urban areas of Myanmar during this time of the need for social distancing. Zaw Min Tun, CEO of MyanCare has put a lot of effort into providing quality healthcare service by ensuring round-the-clock accessibility. Unlimited healthcare consultation costs only K5000 for 3 months, making it affordable to the general public. “Before COVID, majority of users are from urban, fairly educated with a middle income but since the pandemic started, we saw a huge increase in users from the rural,” said Tun.
Launched in early 2018, the key to the company’s growth to this stage has been continuous learning from its customers and simplifying the features on its platform. Looking forward and with the pandemic driving towards digitisation, Tun believes that the majority of medical consultations in the future will happen on digital platforms.
CarsDB
One of Myanmar’s leading online car classified platforms, CarsDB offers both online purchasing and physical car test driving for buyers. Started in 2012, CarsDB offers a slew of peripheral services from new car sales, to a membership club and product listings for accessories. Its offline auto shows in both Yangon and Mandalay used to attract over 20 000 visitors each time.
Wai Phyo Kyaw, co-founder of CardsDB shared that concentrating on the details such as on user interface and experience pays off, allowing them to better understand the habit of the customers and understand how to take the company forward.
One main challenge faced by CarsDB these days, said Kyaw is to have a more balanced supply and demand for its products. Apart from receiving investment from EME, the platform was backed during its earlier years by Malaysian based Frontier Digital Ventures.
EME Celebrates Its 2nd Anniversary, E-commerce, Entrepreneurship among Topics Discussed
