Masters of Mobile

MASTERS OF MOBILE

APAC Report 2018

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Consumers have high expectations of mobile sites, which play a critical role in their purchase decisions. 53% of them will abandon

a mobile site that takes more than 3 seconds to load.¹In APAC, 60% of consumers conduct pre-purchase research on smartphones².

Google commissioned Accenture Interactive to benchmark the user experience of the highest-traﬃcked mobile sites in APAC.

The research assessed over 720 mobile sites across three industries – ﬁnancial services, retail and commerce, and travel – in 15 countries across Asia Paciﬁc.

The next steps for many sites in APAC are to go from good to

great. Most sites achieved average to above-average scores, doing best on product pages and worst on speed.

Monex Securities (JP), CaratLane (IN) and HK Express (HK) top their industries as mobile masters in the region. This report

celebrates the top ten sites in each industry and showcases what they do as best practices.

1. Google Research, Webpagetest.org, sampled 11M global mWeb domains loaded using a globally representative 4G connection, Jan. 2018. 2. Google/Kantar TNS, “Path to Purchase Study”, March 2017, IN, AU, NZ, JP, KR, CN, TW, KR, SG, TH, VN, MY, ID, PH, n=26,000+ respondents.

MOBILE PLAYS A CRITICAL ROLE IN CONSUMERS’ PURCHASE DECISIONS

Smartphones

act as a catalyst for consumers to do research in the moment, which

often triggers a visit to the store or a purchase

60%

79%

55%

of APAC consumers do pre-purchase research online using a smartphone of APAC consumers will still look for information online, even at the point of sale in store of APAC consumers who purchase online prefer to do it on a smartphone¹

1. All data in slide from: Google/Kantar TNS, “Path to Purchase Study”, March 2017, IN, AU, NZ, JP, KR, CN, TW, KR, SG, TH, VN, MY, ID, PH, n=26,000+ respondents.

AS A RESULT, CONSUMERS HAVE HIGH EXPECTATIONS FOR MOBILE SITES

Brands that do not prioritise great mobile experience risk poor conversions.

53%

20%

73%

of consumers will of consumers in APAC

are more likely to purchase from mobile sites that make it easy to

purchase or ﬁnd answers²

drop in conversions leave a mobile site that takes longer than

three seconds to load

experienced for every

second of delay in

mobile page load time¹

1. Google Research, Webpagetest.org, sampled 11M global mWeb domains loaded using a globally representative 4G connection, Jan. 2018. 2. Google/Kantar TNS, “Path to Purchase Study”, March 2017, IN, AU, NZ, JP, KR, CN, TW, KR, SG, TH, VN, MY, ID, PH, n=26,000+ respondents.

WHY THIS RESEARCH?

JP
KR

PH
CN

To help brands elevate their mobile site experience, Google commissioned Accenture Interactive to seek out the top-performing mobile sites in ﬁnancial services, retail and commerce, and travel across Asia Paciﬁc and to celebrate what make these sites great.

PK
TW

HK
VN SG

IN

TH

MY

SCALE OF THIS RESEARCH:

720+ mobile sites assessed

ID

15 countries in 5 sub-regions covered

AU

80 UX industry best practice guidelines used

NZ

45 specialists and engineers involved

HERE’S HOW WE MEASURE A GREAT MOBILE EXPERIENCE

We deﬁne mobile experience score as the percentage of best practices passed in and weighted equally across the categories below. We hail sites as Masters of Mobile if they rank in the top 5 of their respective industries.

MOBILE EXPERIENCE SCORE
PRODUCT PAGES^*
REGISTRATION AND
CONVERSION^*
MOBILE DESIGN^*

FINDABILITY^*

SPEED^**

Does the on-site search and relevant features (e.g. ﬁlter) help users quickly ﬁnd the right product?
Is key written and visual product information presented clearly and consistently? Are there prominent calls to action?
Are registration and payment forms easy to complete? Is the user is offered simple, safe options to transact?
Are the site pages designed for mobile? Do they provide clear headings and well laid-out
Is the site performance optimised for mobile? Do pages load quickly enough to

not disrupt the site experience?

content? Is branding consistent?

* The ﬁrst four mobile categories are assessed by UX specialists based in this region. ** Speed is measured through an automated process reviewed and managed by web speed performance engineers.

APAC OVERVIEW

Mobile websites in this region could focus on speed to take their sites from good to great

100
90

The majority of sites in the study meet or surpass benchmark expectations when it

SUGGESTED STANDARD

80

comes to best practice implementations.

70

For many sites, one way they can go from

good to great is to focus on speed, on

60

which they scored the lowest of all the

50 40 30 20 10
0

categories.

73%

86%

75%

81%

53%

✓

!

FINDABILITY

PRODUCT

PAGES
REGISTRATION & CONVERSION
MOBILE DESIGN
SPEED

LOOKING INTO SPEED

Speed scores per APAC subregion compared against the suggested standard

100
90

What do these scores mean?

Percentage scores have been calculated by normalizing Speed Index measurements of all brands that are part of this study.

SUGGESTED STANDARD

80 70

Speed Index (read in milliseconds) measures how visually available a particular page is to the customer when loaded. The lower the score, the faster the page is rendered and the content is visually made available to the customer, even if the rest of the page is not ready yet.

60

APAC AVERAGE

50 40 30

73%

APAC LEGEND

63%

55%

47%

20 10
0

Good Average 5500 - 8500 (60-80%)

Poor >8500 (<60%)

<5500

(>80%)

6715

8113

9168

9279

10286

Speed

Speed Index

Index

GREATER CHINA

S.E. ASIA

INDIA

AU & NZ

JAPAN

HOW TO IMPROVE SPEED

Our top speed recommendations for APAC

83% of mobile sites surveyed can improve their speed this way:

Ensure textual and image contents are compressed
Enable caching on the browser side
Identify and ﬁx backend bottlenecks

●●●

Use gzip compression for transferring compressable responses Compress and pick the right settings for your images including format, quality and size and more Use Progressive JPEGs to improve perceived performance

●

All server responses should specify a caching policy to help the client determine if and when it can reuse a previously fetched response

●

Inspect existing infrastructure using application performance management tools Fix performance bottlenecks Implement a monitoring solution to alert for any anomalies

●●

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

FINANCIAL SERVICES

Every interaction we design starts on a mobile screen and adapts to a larger device. It forces us to question what’s important, what people really need to see, and how we can

“

FINANCIAL SERVICES

MEET THE MOBILE MASTERS

make it simpler.

”

Tony Jones, UX Lead at ME Bank

Consumers increasingly expect mobile sites to be fast and easy to use. We reviewed the 238 most traﬃcked ﬁnancial services websites in APAC for their user experience including speed, and list the top 10 scoring sites below.

BEST IN CLASS: CATEGORY^**

AU

CN

HK

Findability – Top in class (100%)

BankSA, ME Bank and Saison Card

12

3

China Construction Bank

12

IG Group

86%

82%

78%

84% 84%

12

3

BankSA ME Bank

Westpac

81%
77%
DBS Bank*
CIB

Product pages – Top in class (100%)

China Construction Bank
Lakala

3

81%

77%

AEON, BankSA, Daiwa Securities, Idemitsu Card, IG Group, Matsui Securities, ME Bank, Monex Securities, NTUC Income and Saison Card

IN*

JP

MY

BankBazaar IIFL
88% 87%

12

3

Monex Securities Saison Card

12

Maybank

77%

Hong Leong Bank 71%

Registration and conversion – Top in class (100%)

Daiwa Securities

Matsui Securities

85%

Kotak Mahindra Bank

SG

TW

TH

Mobile design – Top in class (100%)

Monex Securities and Saison Card

12

3

NTUC Income POSB Bank
83% 82%

12

Cathay Bank Tai Shin Bank
75% 75%

12

3

AEON
86%
Citibank

KTC

77%

74%
Phillip Securities
82%

*

The brands in India are presented in alphabetical order.

** For these global brands, scores (with the exception of speed) were taken from reviews conducted in another country.
*** Individual speed ranks are omitted in this report as poorly designed sites can load very quickly. For this report, speed should be considered a function of overall user experience.

HERE’S HOW THE MOBILE MASTERS DO IT

Take a look at how the leading ﬁnancial services ﬁrms in APAC are doing so well

REGISTRATION AND CONVERSION

FINDABILITY

PRODUCT PAGES

MOBILE DESIGN

ME Bank’s on-site search experience is top-notch—search is always easy to ﬁnd and results are organised and easily scannable.
Daiwa Securities uses good quality compressed images and a clear layout to display product information in an easily readable and
ME Bank’s application forms are simple, only ask for what is needed, give clear instructions and reasons for requesting private information.
NTUC Income makes their site feel easy to use by avoiding visual clutter, having appropriately large touch targets and by labelling icons. understandable way.

AU

JP

AU

SG

HOW TO BE A MOBILE MASTER

Our top recommendations for ﬁnancial service sites across Asia Paciﬁc

68% of sites surveyed can improve

ﬁndability this way:

mobile design this way:

Use autocomplete to suggest popular searches
When there are no matching search results, provide some next steps or guidance
Avoid carousels, or at least let users control them

New visitors may not always know what the most appropriate search terms are or how the site is organised, so autocomplete provides valuable assistance. Typing is also error-prone on mobiles and autocomplete helps mitigate this, saving valuable time.
It can be diﬃcult and annoying to process information on moving images. If a carousel must be implemented, it should not auto-rotate and users should be able to see that they can control it (e.g. arrow buttons, dots to indicate multiple images).
Dead ends in a shopping journey can leave users lost. Suggestions, guidance or at least a message telling users what went wrong give potential customers an idea of what they can do next to continue.

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

RETAIL & COMMERCE

We understand how important website loading speed is

“

for conversion rate and that we’re living in mobile era. Therefore, we set a challenging KPI for our IT team to optimize loading speed to under 2.5 seconds, both on PC and mobile. We also spread our mobile-ﬁrst mindset in every activity to make sure everything displays fast and well on

RETAIL & COMMERCE

mobile devices.

”

Tung Nguyen E-Commerce Director at Điện máy Xanh

Consumers increasingly expect mobile sites to be fast and easy to use. We reviewed the 352 most traﬃcked retail and commerce websites in Asia Paciﬁc for their user experience including speed, and list the top 10 scoring sites below.

HK

1

AU

CN

JD.com
86%
82%

82%

1

iHerb

88%

85%
83%
79%

1

Target

Findability – Top in class (94%)

Target

2

Huawei

Ruten

2

3

Banggood*

Etsy

2

3

Qichedaquan

Weipinhui

3

85%

78%

Product pages – Top in class (93%)

ASUS

ID

1

IN*
JP

1

Amazon CaratLane

Flipkart

Qoo10

89%

87%

86%

Amazon Sanrio
83% 83%

82%

2

Bhinneka.Com

Amazon*

2

3
3

ToysRUs

Registration and conversion – Top in class (95%)

iHerb, Qoo10, Target and The Warehouse

SG

MY

1

PH

1

iHerb

89%

1

Shopee* Lazada*
78% 77%
Amazon* Apple*
87%

Mobile design – Top in class (100%)

Bhinneka.Com, Điện máy Xanh, Thegioididong.com and the Warehouse

2

3

Qoo10

Amazon

88%

87%

2
2

80%

3

11STREET

73%

3

Globe*

VN

1

TH

1

TW

Thegioididong.com Điện máy Xanh

Amazon

89%
87%

87%

87%
81%

80%

12

3

Amazon* eBay
87%
82%

80%

ASUS

2

Ruten

2

3

Amazon

3

Lazada*

*

The brands in India are presented in alphabetical order.

** For these global brands, scores (with the exception of speed) were taken from reviews conducted in another country.
*** Individual speed ranks are omitted in this report as poorly designed sites can load very quickly. For this report, speed should be considered a function of overall user experience.

HERE’S HOW THE MOBILE MASTERS DO IT

Take a look at how the leading retail & commerce brands in Asia Paciﬁc are doing so well

REGISTRATION AND CONVERSION

FINDABILITY

PRODUCT PAGES

MOBILE DESIGN

Thegioididong.com uses sharp, product images and presents product details in easy-to-read tables to make product comparison effortless.
CaratLane suggests search terms based on similar popular searches, helping potential customers quickly ﬁnd what they want.
Bhinneka.com’s mobile site design gives a consistent experience across devices, lets users control carousels and avoids overly cluttering pages.
The Warehouse’s checkout process makes ﬁlling out mobile forms quicker by providing address suggestions and real-time feedback for errors.

IN

VN

NZ

ID

HOW TO BE A MOBILE MASTER

Our top recommendations for retail & commerce sites across Asia Paciﬁc

product pages this way:

registration and conversion this way:

Allow users to save products to a guest wishlist
Showcase the tangible beneﬁts of creating an account
Allow users to purchase products as guests

On sites with a wide selection of products, guest wishlists prevent choice paralysis by letting users narrow down to and compare a select few. Not having a guest wishlist is a missed opportunity to help users along their purchase journey.
There’s no shortage of account beneﬁts for most retail sites. But not making potential members aware of these means that new users may miss out on why they should take the additional steps to create an account, losing many sites an opportunity to convert.
Making accounts mandatory for checkout adds friction to the conversion process, as it requires additional decision-making and effort from potential customers. This increases the likelihood that users will not complete their purchase.

INDUSTRY INSIGHTS

TRAVEL

We understand that a complete mobile experience is very

“

important to travelers and that's why we are aggressively investing in innovation and an optimized product for our mobile-savvy customers.

TRAVEL

”

Murari Gopalan, VP Marketing at Expedia

Consumers increasingly expect mobile sites to be fast and easy to use. We reviewed the 258 most traﬃcked travel websites in Asia Paciﬁc for their user experience including speed, and list the top 10 scoring sites below

AU

CN

HK

85% 85%

84%

85%

90%

86%

85%

1