Malaysian consumers expect fast website performance on all connected devices

By Digital News Asia April 2, 2017

Offering positive online experiences tailored by country is critical
Personalised web experiences were ranked as very important in all countries

Malaysian consumers expect fast website performance on all connected devices

SMARTPHONES are the go-to device for accessing the Internet throughout Southeast Asia, and Malaysian consumers expect fast performance of websites across all devices, according to the “State of the User Experience” research report released by Limelight Networks, a leader in digital content delivery.

“Our new research shows that Malaysian consumers are online 16 hours or more each week, outside of work, and they have high expectations for website performance, especially when it comes to e-commerce,” said Limelight regional sales director Jaheer Abbas.

“Nearly everyone surveyed (94%) said that they’re likely to recommend a brand to a friend if they have a positive web experience, and on the flip side, that they’ll leave and go to a competitor if it isn’t a good experience.”

While there is a great deal of behavioural consistency throughout the region, some interesting regional differences were identified.

Personalised web experiences were ranked as very important in all countries, but were slightly less so in Singapore.

Also, while the majority of respondents regionally will abandon a website if the experience is slow, there is slightly more tolerance in the Philippines.

Despite these differences, the report clearly illustrates the need for organisations to prioritise the optimisation of mobile experiences, understand the expectations of consumers within each country rather than implementing a “one-size-fits-all” approach, and accelerate website performance to keep visitors engaged.

Malaysian consumers expect fast website performance on all connected devices

Time spent online varies by country and generation. People in the Philippines spend the most time online closely followed by those in Malaysia. People in Singapore are online the least.

In Thailand, millennials are online the least, with 34% online 16 hours or more a week compared to 42% for all other age groups.

The gap is even greater in the Philippines, where 39% of millennials versus 56% of all other age groups are online this amount of time.

Additional insights from the report include:

Performance impacts e-commerce sales. Nearly half (48%) of Malaysian consumers surveyed will leave a website and go to a competitor if a webpage takes too long to load.
Websites should load quickly on all connected devices. Eighty-six percent of Malaysian respondents report they expect equally fast load times on any device.
People come for the content. Social media is the top online activity closely followed by online video, and fresh and updated content ranks as the top expectation for web experiences.
Consumers want personalisation website experiences. Most Malaysian consumers (68%) surveyed want a website to remember them and make recommendations based on previous visits.

The “State of the User Experience-South East Asia” report is based on a survey of 1,600 consumers chosen at random in the Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, and the Philippines, aged 18 and over.