Fastest-growing retail e-commerce countries 2023

Forecasts indicate significant growth in the e-commerce sectors of Asia and America in 2023. Topping the list are Mexico and the Philippines, poised for a surge of approximately 25 percent and 24 percent in online sales, respectively. Following closely behind, Malaysia secures the third spot with an 18 percent growth rate. Meanwhile, Argentina and Brazil were expected to outpace other nations, with e-retail sales forecast to grow by over 15 percent.

A growing global e-retail market

Partly fueled by a rapid increase in internet users worldwide over recent years, along with mobility constraints and the shutdown of physical stores during the COVID-19 pandemic, the global e-commerce retail market expanded fourfold from 2014 to 2022. Central to this growth has been the widespread adoption of mobile commerce, which entails online shopping through smartphones, particularly prominent in various regions of the global South. Forecasts suggested that m-commerce sales in Argentina are poised to surge by around 2.4 times between 2022 and 2026.

Fast-growing markets fueled by local players

While online retail giants Amazon and Alibaba Group wield global dominance in the e-commerce landscape, they do not hold the top positions in many of the fastest-growing e-commerce markets. Based on monthly website traffic, Singaporean e-retailer Shopee is the leading e-commerce site in Singapore by a significant margin. This trend is even more pronounced in Argentina, where Mercado Libre garners nearly 50 times the traffic witnessed on Amazon's Spanish page, amazon.es.