The four unexpected behavioural trends in Asia-Pacific

Trend 1: Time to read

The number of unique visitors on book retail sites and apps in many APAC countries, while down in April 2021 compared with April 2020, was significantly higher compared with Jan 2020 – pre-pandemic days. Global players in the book retail space such as Scribd.com and Google Play Books are still prominent. Restrictions of course have not fully been lifted in many countries, as the spectre of Omicron delays the process. Whether the weight of online book retail will remain high once the restrictions are fully lifted remains to be seen.

Table 1

Source: Comscore MMX Multi-Platform Jan 2020 – April 2021, Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

Trend 2: Mindfulness

In line with the return of interest in reading books, the search about Religion/Spirituality, aligned with the country’s dominant faith, still is a subject of attention: even if the number of unique visitors dropped in April 2021, it remains higher compared with pre-pandemic days (Jan 2020).

Table 2

Source: Comscore MMX Multi-Platform Jan 2020 – April 2021, Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam

Trend 3: Consumers strive to achieve a healthy mind in a healthy body

Health and fitness are still a big trend, people’s interest and visits on fitness and diet-related sites or apps increased significantly in April 2021 compared to April 2020. It seems that people kept their weekly exercise routines during the pandemic as a routine activity for life – beyond Covid. Given the scale of the increase, it seems likely that the trend will continue into the near future.

Table 3

Source: Comscore MMX Multi-Platform Jan 2020 – April 2021, Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam

Trend 4: The impasse: home sweet home vs. it’s time to “go out”

In 2020 consumers elsewhere in the world and also in the Asia-Pacific region improved their home or at least showed interest on home improvement and decoration topics. While not as strong as in 2020, the trend shows signs of persistence: as the table below shows, in most countries the number of unique visitors was still higher in April 2021 then in April 2020.

Table 4

Source: Comscore MMX Multi-Platform Jan 2020 – April 2021, Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam