With the launch party of Olswang Asia happening tonight, I have been musing on the economic outlook for Asia in 2012 and beyond. At a very micro-level I have been very pleasantly surprised by the (extraordinarily high) level of interest in our launch and it looks like the party tonight will be standing room only. I wondered if my personal experience was indicative of the wider economy so have been reviewing a number of commentaries on growth prospects for the region.
In particular, I looked at reports from the Economist and Insight Bureau. Both commentators agreed that the outlook for Europe varied from bad to very bad, whilst the outlook for America was mildly positive. Whilst China’s growth rate is expected to drop into single digits, caused by a slowdown in its export markets, the consensus view is that the Indian economy remains driven by domestic demand. Whilst India’s reliance on domestic demand has resulted in lower growth than China, it also means that India is less exposed to the Euro zone slowdown than China.
So aside from India and China, what are the prospects in ASEAN? Its is sometimes easy to forget that Indonesia has an economy five times the size of Greece (to pick a random comparator). Whilst it is still less than a third of the size of the German economy, it is expected to sustainably grow at around 5-6% a year for the forseeable future, whilst Germany will be lucky to not contract. Meanwhile, its ASEAN neighbours such as Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, as well as South Korea, continue to grow strongly.
So, the upshot of my limited research is that my personal experience seems to be in line with the market (much as I’d like to convince myself that we are bucking the trend). However, I think there are others factors at play that mean that the technology, media and telecoms markets across Asia are in fact growing more rapidly than the region generally.
First, the rise of average income levels resulting from GDP growth means that the middle class (for these purposes defined as those on an above subsistence wage) is doubling every few years. Members of that rapidly growing middle class all have mobile telephones, watch TV, own computers and go to the movies.
Second, as consumers become more assertive and the market size increases they are increasingly wanting local content, services and applications. Markets with revenue growth and consumer demand are increasingly resulting in local suppliers competing, complementing or co-operating with the more established global players.