It is a truth almost universally recognised that internet penetration in the 10-member bloc known as Asean – the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – is low, even though the region is humming economically.

东盟(Asean) 10国虽然经济发展蒸蒸日上，但互联网渗透率很低。这是一条几乎得到公认的事实。

Or is it?

果真如此吗？

UBS has come out with some interesting research that will give the e-commerce crowd something to cheer. The bank finds that Asean has a 32 per cent “internet penetration rate”, or almost 200m users, out of a total population of 620m.

瑞银(UBS)发布了会令电子商务界欢呼的一些有趣的研究结果。该行发现，东盟的“互联网渗透率”达到32%，即在6.2亿总人口中，有近2亿网民。

This contrasts with market data apparently widely accepted – and cited by UBS – saying that penetration could be as low as 62m users.

这与被广泛接受的市场数据——即东盟可能只有6200万网民（瑞银也援引了这一数据）——形成了反差。

How does the bank comes up with this rather different result? And more importantly what might this mean for companies like Rakuten, Japan’s biggest online retailer, or Lazada.com, a recent Southeast Asian internet retail venture backed by Germany’s Rocket Internet?

瑞银是如何得出不同结论的？更重要的是，对于日本最大在线零售商乐天(Rakuten)或最近在德国Rocket Internet支持下成立的东南亚互联网零售企业Lazada.com等公司来说，这一结论意味着什么？

First, UBS has used some funky algorithms provided by a company called Similarweb.com, to crunch how many times a range of retail websites are used by consumers – or would-be consumers – across the region.

首先，瑞银运用了一家名为Similarweb.com的公司提供的一些不同寻常的算法，计算东盟地区消费者（或潜在消费者）使用一系列零售网站的次数。

This analysis of “traffic data” produced some interesting findings.

这种对“流量数据”的分析得出了一些有趣的结果。

The monthly shopping website traffic run-rate as of March was 391m hits in Asean – principally Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines – while the same rate in China was 723m. That’s not too far ahead considering the vastly larger Chinese population.

截至3月，东盟地区（主要是印尼、马来西亚、泰国、越南、新加坡和菲律宾）购物网站月度流量为3.91亿次，而中国则为7.23亿次。考虑到中国人口数量高得多，这两者差距并不大。

One of the key drivers has been the shift to mobile platforms, from personal computers.

关键推动力之一是从个人电脑向移动平台的转移。

“Asean has reached its ‘mobile moment’,” argues Raymond Maguire, Bangkok-based lead analyst on the report.

“东盟迎来了自己的‘移动时刻’，”牵头撰写瑞银研究报告的驻曼谷分析师雷蒙德•马圭尔(Raymond Maguire)表示。

Most internet traffic comes from mobile devices as the traditional PC has been circumvented by the arrival of 3G services and – crucially – more affordable mobile devices that the region’s emerging “consumer class” can afford.

大部分互联网流量来自移动设备。3G服务以及（更关键的）东盟正在崛起的“消费者阶层”承担得起的移动设备的问世，使传统的个人电脑不再是上网的必要手段。

Smartphone sales in the first quarter in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam were up by between 45 per cent and 68 per cent, year-on-year.

今年第1季度，印尼、泰国和越南的手机销量同比上升了45%至68%。

The speed with which this has happened is best illustrated by Thailand. UBS points out that only 18 months ago the country – the second largest economy in Asean – was one of three countries in the world without 3G (the others were North Korea and Cuba).

泰国最能体现发展速度。瑞银指出，仅仅一年半之前，作为东盟第二大经济体的泰国，还是世界上三个没有3G的国家之一（另两个是朝鲜和古巴)。

Credit card penetration of 5 per cent did not bode well for online shopping. Yet a plethora of other types on online payment system – such as ThaiEpay.com, Paysbuy.com and others – have helped fill the gap.

信用卡渗透率仅为5%，预示着在线购物前景不佳。不过，众多其他类型的在线支付系统，比如ThaiEpay.com和Paysbuy.com等，已帮助填补了差距。

The largest e-commerce site in the country, weloveshopping.com. recorded total website hits of 6.9m in March. That is about the same as the seventh largest in China, called Yhd.com – itself next in line behind Amazon.com, with 16m hits.

今年3月，泰国最大电商网站weloveshopping.com网站的访问量达到690万次。这几乎跟中国第七大电商网站一号店(Yhd.com)相当，一号店本身仅次于访问量达1600万次的亚马逊(Amazon)。

Using this data UBS extrapolates further that the so-called “conversion rate” – at which a website hit becomes a sale – in Asean is likely to be 0.5 per cent to 1 per cent – not far off the global average of 1.2 per cent (the US is at 3 per cent).

瑞银使用这些数据推断，东盟的所谓“转换率”（购买行为占点击次数的比率）可能为0.5%至1%，与1.2%的全球平均水平相差不远（美国为3%）。

The region is probably experiencing an average online spend per transaction of $35.9, UBS estimates, compared with $32.8 in Asean minus Singapore, the city-state which has the most mature e-commerce market in the region.

瑞银估计，该地区目前的每笔网购平均消费额可能为35.9美元，若剔除该地区最成熟的电商市场新加坡，则为32.8美元。

This implies a “currently immature” e-commerce market grossing $528m-$1.1bn, based on a calculation that that ecommerce accounts for around 0.2 per cent of total retail sales (see table below), according to UBS estimates.

据瑞银估计，按电商占零售总额约0.2%的比例计算，这表明东盟这一“当前不成熟的”电商市场总规模为5.28亿至11亿美元。

The opportunity is defined by the small base. If ecommerce was to rise to 5 per cent of total retail sales, then the ecommerce market would increase in size to US$21.8bn and if it were to expand to 8 per cent of retail sales, the resulting market size would be US$34.9bn.

基数低说明发展机遇巨大。如果电商占到零售总额的5%，其市场规模将上升至218亿美元；如果电商占到零售总额的8%，其市场规模将达349亿美元。

In both China and the US the size of the ecommerce market relative to retail sales is currently around 8 per cent.

在中国和美国，目前电商占零售总额的比例都在8%左右。

This likely helps explains why the biggest e-commerce player in the region, China’s Alibaba, earlier this year took a 10.35 per cent stake in Singapore Post, for S$313m (US$251m). SingPost has been rapidly expanding its e-commerce business in Southeast Asia.

这可能有助于解释，为何亚洲最大电商公司、中国的阿里巴巴(Alibaba)今年早些时候斥资3.13亿新元（合2.51亿美元）收购了新加坡邮政(Singapore Post) 10.35%的股份。新加坡邮政一直快速地在东南亚扩展其电商业务。

Expectations are high for rapid growth among other ecommerce sites, several of which are shown in the table below.

预计其他电商网站也将快速增长，下表列出了其中几个网站。

Yet there are caveats. Chief among them is the extent to which the Asean consumer will continue paying out while becoming increasingly stretched. Household and credit card debt are at worrying levels in Thailand and Malaysia.

不过，也存在种种问题。最主要的是，东盟消费者在手头越来越紧的同时，会在多大程度上会继续大笔支出？在泰国和马来西亚，家庭债务和信用卡债务已达到令人担忧的水平。

Customs clearance is a major issue in Asean. The much-vaunted Asean Economic Community envisages legislation that aims to create a “single window” for efficient, electronic – customs clearance. There are also supposed to be policies to support cross-border transportation.

报关也是东盟地区的一大问题。大肆吹嘘的东盟经济共同体(Asean Economic Community)预计将通过立法创建高效率的电子报关“单一窗口”。支持跨境运输的政策也有望出台。

That is all supposed to happen by the end of 2015. Most observers think that unrealistic.

这一切理应在2015年底实现。大多数观察人士认为这不现实。