How High Is Indonesia's Internet Traffic During The Pandemic? A Research Answers

Photo illustration (Sigmund / Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Research results from digital company Akamai show that Indonesia's internet traffic is experiencing growth per year. Its growth reached 73 percent in the first quarter of 2020 year-on-year (yoy), and soared to 139 percent in the second quarter of 2020 yoy.

"The pandemic has increased the demand for content and internet services that no company had previously suspected," said Matthew Lynn, Regional Sales Director for South Asia Akamai in a press release in Jakarta, Sunday, December 20.

In Akamai's latest report titled Indonesia: The Challenge of Monetizing in a Fast-Growing Market, it is stated that the pandemic has caused a spike in online activity and traffic. This is happening as more Indonesians turn to online for work, shopping and study.

In addition, it was also found that the growth of online traffic between quarters, with a quarterly increase of 46 percent in 2020, increased rapidly when compared to a quarterly increase of 5 percent in 2019.

He revealed that this is the first time growth and increasing domestic demand for content and internet services during this period have undoubtedly attracted the interest of many new media players, creating a very competitive environment with customers spoiled for choice on the internet.

About 70 percent of respondents cited monetization as a top business priority as they invested in infrastructure to create and distribute content to local audiences.

"To monetize their business, many media companies need to scale their services and expand their offerings to meet the diverse customer demands that have changed their online behavior following the impact of the pandemic," said Matthew Lynn.

With competition for monetization and customer attention, 70 percent of the responding media businesses predict a move towards a video-on-demand (video-on-demand) subscription model as a more sustainable monetization option.

However, he continued, some respondents chose a hybrid approach, namely offering free content with video quality or a limited user experience, to make their services more accessible and monetize with advertising while customers were still familiarizing themselves with the idea of paying for content subscriptions.

"Having a super comprehensive content library and greater collaboration in the media ecosystem has also been identified as a way to scale and penetrate the market," he said.