Size of Online Audience in Southeast Asia-6: 100 Million!

Ever since coming to Singapore in the role of selling Google display advertising, I found that there is very little data available that could be used by a media professional. Add to that, one has to collect metrics by six different countries that make up the primary market of SEA. Sigh! So I thought, I could use some publicly available online tools and put together some numbers to this amazingly vibrant, growing market.

For starters, there are 100 million online users in Indonesia, Philippines, Viet Nam, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Take a look at the table above that I put together using two tools: a. Google Population One Box and b. Doubleclick Ad Planner. The Ad Planner numbers only total up to 91 million but knowing Google, these numbers are very conservative. So, easily assume the grand number to be 100 million! There is something magical about the number 100M as it brings a certain critical mass to the table.

The other little piece of data highlighted in this table is the reach of the Google Display Network (GDN). Just like in most parts of the world, Google's ad network has great reach in each of the SEA countries going north of 90% in countries like Singapore, Thailand, and Philippines! Overall, in Southeast Asia, Google's display network reaches 77% of the online audience.

Using Ad Planner, you can quickly look at the vast spectrum of web content for each country. Take for example Singapore. How many of us among media buyers would readily know that a search engine called sogou.com will have 200,000 monthly visitors? Or that Tiger Airways gets 70,000 more visitors than Singapore Airlines? Check the graph below. Go on, try these free tools online to understand some basic things about your audience online. And don't forget to post your feedback.