Mobile Wallets Spotlight: Malaysia

Loke Hwee Wong

VP and GM APAC

5 min read

October 28, 2021

Over the past 2 years, Southeast Asia has added more than 70 million online shoppers. This growth has in large part been driven by mobile wallet payments, which are accessible to a bigger audience than credit cards and bank-based payments.

Malaysia is one of the more advanced developing markets in Southeast Asia as it boasts a GDP per capita that is roughly triple that of Indonesia and the Philippines.

Mobile payment adoption in Malaysia is behind other Southeast Asian countries, as mobile wallets have been slower to enter and gain traction in the market.

Malaysia, however, is poised for hypergrowth over the next five years, as mobile wallet users and penetration are set to triple, with transactions growing more than tenfold:

Mobile wallet users: 10M in 2020, forecast to grow to 33M by 2025
Mobile wallet ownership: 32% of the population, 94% by 2025
Mobile wallet transaction volume: 338M transactions, 3.7B transactions by 2025
Mobile wallet transaction value: $5.5B, $28.2B by 2025

Malaysia has a competitive mobile wallet landscape

In Malaysia, three mobile wallets are going to be doing battle for the 20+ million consumers that are expected to adopt mobile payments over the next five years.

GrabPay has gotten out to a lead due to having been in the market longer than competitors as well as having super app functionality and greater merchant adoption.

Touch ‘N Go, originally used for paying road tolls, has been gaining on GrabPay, thanks in part to investment from Ant Financial. Boost, the “pure-play” Malaysian wallet has also grown rapidly, and will continue to challenge over the coming years:

Mobile Wallet Growth Forecast Malaysia — Mobile wallet growth forecast Malaysia

Want to launch mobile wallet payments in the Malaysia? Conclusions

For merchants looking to grow their revenue in Malaysia, connecting to mobile wallets to reach online consumers is crucial. If you are looking to launch mobile wallets in Malaysia and other Asian countries through one turnkey integration, get in touch.

For more data on mobile wallet payments in Malaysia and 20+ other countries, download our Mobile Wallets Report 2021.

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