Asia’s appetite for online shopping has shifted from the PC to the smartphone with more than half of Indonesian and Thai consumers using their mobile phones to shop.

According to the latest MasterCard Online Shopping Survey, China leads the region overall as the market with the most propensity to conduct online shopping (102 Index Points), ahead of New Zealand (87), Australia (85), Singapore (84), and South Korea (82).

Driving these shifts in behaviors in China are increased confidence in shopping: only 21.4 per cent had security concerns while shopping online, down from 32.8 per cent in 2011 and 35.3 per cent in 2010. There is also an emerging view that shopping online is “easy” among 89.5 per cent of the Chinese respondents, an increase from 80.8 per cent in 2011.

Meanwhile, two-thirds (68 per cent) of New Zealand respondents use the internet for online shopping among other activities, and 82.3 per cent shopped online in the past three months.

Singapore and Hong Kong recorded the biggest increases in online shopping behavior with both markets registering a nine Index Point increase in 2012.

MasterCard’s survey revealed a notable increase in smartphone shopping. Indonesians top the region with more than half of respondents (54.5 per cent) using their smartphones to shop in the last three months. China follows closely with 54.1 per cent and Thailand with 51 per cent.

About 40 per cent of online shoppers in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore – which also have high internet-enabled mobile users – made a purchase with their phone in the past three months.

The least likely to shop online via their mobile phones, though, are respondents from New Zealand (18.2 per cent), Australia (18.7 per cent), and the Philippines (21.4 per cent).

One in five of Asia-Pacific’s shoppers purchased a fashion item using their mobile phone in the past three months. Australians (32.4 per cent), Koreans (28.8 per cent), and Singaporeans (28.5 per cent) have bought something ‘fashionable’ online through their smartphones.

“With the exception of a few markets, online shoppers are becoming more confident about using their phones to shop and I’d expect that trend to continue as more sophisticated technologies come onto the market and more products are offered online,” said Porush Singh, senior VP, core products, global products and solutions, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, MasterCard.

The survey also revealed key shopping trends such as:

• Mobile banking. Across all 14 Asia-Pacific markets, mobile banking apps had the highest awareness-familiarity levels at 45 per cent, followed by in-social-networking-app shopping (34 per cent), in-game-app shopping (33 per cent) and SMS/MMS-based payments (31 per cent).
• Security concerns. When it comes to buying from foreign websites, more than one in three respondents across Asia-Pacific felt buying locally was safer as they were afraid of scams and perceived a possible risk of information being compromised.
• Categories that interest respondents. Topping the list of categories that interest them are coupons/deal sites, which interested close to 40 per cent of the respondents across the 14 markets surveyed. These types of sites are particularly strong in China (70 per cent), Hong Kong (54 per cent), Vietnam (51 per cent), South Korea (50 per cent) and Singapore (47 per cent).