Indonesia App Economy Behind Only Vietnam and Singapore

Can applications development be one route to economic success for a country such as Indonesia,  that has a large internal market? Yes, argues Dr. Michael Mandel, chief economic strategist at the Progressive Policy Institute and a Senior Fellow at the Mack Institute for Innovation Management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

“We estimate that Indonesia has roughly 22,000 app economy jobs across the entire country,” said Mandel. “In fact, Indonesia comes in third in our app economy ranking of major Southeast Asia countries, behind Vietnam and just behind Singapore.”

Indonesia’ Internet penetration rate increased to 35 percent in 2014, according to the Association of Indonesian Internet Service Providers (APJII).

Smartphone adoption use is still relatively low, but increasing quickly. The largest use is social networking, with 85 percent using a mobile phone to access the Internet, Mandel says.

According to data from Statistics Indonesia, the information and communications sector grew by 10 percent in 2014, compared to five percent growth for the gross domestic product of the whole country.

Among key segments of the app economy are large, medium, and small Indonesian app developers, who may be creating apps for themselves or for clients.

Then there are enterprises using Indonesian workers for app development. Also, finance and retail companies use apps to reach customers, and are part of the app economy as well.

Other large non-tech companies that are developing apps for internal and customer use.