SAP launches data centre in Singapore to drive digital commerce in APAC

Software company SAP has launched a data centre in Singapore to help businesses in APAC adopt digital commerce strategies to deliver superior customer experiences. Singapore was selected to host SAP’s data centre due to its "geopolitical stability and its adherence to data privacy".

The data centre will be the default data centre for SAP customers in Southeast Asia and India. It will help customers deploy SAP's commerce cloud solution with minimal latency and performance issue to deliver a seamless online shopping experience.

Atul Tuli, VP and head of customer experience, SAP Southeast Asia said there are "unprecedented growth opportunities" in APAC’s digital commerce environment and the region has become a key market for the company. In APAC, SAP currently also has data centres in Australia, China and Hong Kong. The SAP Commerce Cloud solution is part of the larger SAP Customer Experience portfolio.

A research by payments technology company, Worldpay in January predicted that eCommerce across Asia-Pacific will continue to grow significantly in 2019 and beyond. Asia-Pacific is eCommerce’s leading region globally and stands at the forefront of payment innovation, particularly in terms of mobile commerce and the rise of frictionless, invisible payments.

Mobile commerce, in particular, is set to become the most popular online channel over the next four years in a number of Asia-Pacific markets, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, and India. Mobile commerce is currently the most popular transaction method in both South Korea and China.

There will be a dramatic shift from cash to eWallets at Point of Sale over the next four years, with eWallets set to grow from 27% of POS market share in 2018 to 42% by 2022. On the eCommerce side, Asia-Pacific will continue to lead the world in the adoption of eWallets, which will account for two-thirds of regional payment volume by 2022.

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