Pikom comes out with its own ‘MSC’

  • Mobile Social Commerce to be game-changer, says national ICT association
  • Pikom also unveils latest edition of its annual research report

THE Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry of Malaysia (Pikom) released the latest edition of its annual research report, the ICT Strategic Review 2012/ 2013, at a two-day Leadership Summit which focused on the theme “Mobile Social Commerce.”
 
“It has not escaped me that this has the same acronym as the Multimedia Super Corridor or MSC Malaysia,” said Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, chief executive officer of the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), the national ICT custodian.
 
As a keynote speaker at the summit, Badlisham said that the theme Pikom had chosen – “Innovation for Digital Opportunity: The Power of Mobile Social Commerce” -- was an apt one for the times.
 
“Mobile commerce in Malaysia was worth RM467 million in 2011; e-commerce hit the RM1.97 billion mark,” he said.
 
“Malaysians are also famous for spending a lot of their time online on social media networks,” he added, also noting that the mobile penetration rate in the country stood at 128.7% in 2011.
 
Pikom comes out with its own ‘MSC’The term “Mobile Social Commerce” was mooted at a series of meetings at Pikom earlier this year, the association’s chairman and executive director Woon Tai Hai (pic) said. “Each is big in its own way, but we asked the question of what happens when all three come together.”
 
“They are collectively going to change the technological and economic landscape,” he said, adding that “Mobile Social Commerce” trend would be especially beneficial to small and medium enterprises as an effective and efficient platform for them to expand their markets globally.
 
The power of the Mobile Social Commerce platform cannot be underestimated, Woon said. “It has transformed our lives in unforeseen ways in this era of switch-on smartphones and tablets, as well as social networking, digital media, mobile commerce and the ubiquitous cloud.”
 
“A source from Nielsen indicated that Malaysians spent RM1.8 billion on online purchases in 2010. By 2011, there was a proliferation of new e-commerce enabled websites, electronic marketplaces, digital services – in both the public and private sectors – as well as group buying sites and e-payment services.
 
“To top it off, these businesses have been promoting their sites across social networking platforms – 94% of Malaysian online consumers use social networks as a guide for their shopping,” he added. “Surely there is more that can be done now that the social mobile commerce platform has been enabled.”
 
Meanwhile, all participants of the Leadership Summit received complimentary copies of the 210-page ICT Strategic Review 2012/ 2013: Innovation for Digital Opportunities report, published by Pikom and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.
 
The report collects research, hard data, insights and white papers submitted from industry and academia on a variety of areas, from the economic landscape and national ICT roadmap to social business and green IT.
 

 
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