Compared to the rest of the world, influencer marketing is relatively new, yet growing steadily, in a few parts of Asia. The State of Influence in Asia report seeks to highlight how 10 Asian countries are faring with respect to the influencer industry across 14 categories, right from automotive to real estate. Let’s look at the key insights from the 2023 report.

State Of Influence In Asia Report By AnyMind

About AnyMind Group 

AnyMind Group is an end-to-end commerce enablement company that provides tech tools to marketers and influencers to support production, e-commerce, marketing, and logistics. Their mission is to make every business borderless. 

Survey Methodology 

The report uses data collected from over 500,000 influencers across 4000 influencer marketing campaigns conducted through the AnyTag platform, which is AnyMind Group’s flagship influencer marketing platform. The countries included in this report are: Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Because of the high volume of data collected, the report is accurate and comprehensive. 

Key Statistics From The State of Influence in Asia 2023 Report 

The amount of influencers in Asia has continued to grow, with Instagram seeing the most growth compared to last year. It was found that, across all 10 countries, most influencers preferred Instagram and YouTube, with TikTok gaining a lot of traction. Indeed, most of the influencer marketing campaigns were being run on Instagram and TikTok. 

Source: AnyMind Group

The number of micro-influencers were found to be the highest in all countries except Myanmar where macro influencers took the lead.  

When it comes to influencer verticals, the arts and entertainment industry saw the most growth (+123.82%), with the fashion and beauty industry coming in at a close second (+93.91%). The third and fourth place were occupied by the travel and food and beverage industry respectively. The number of travel influencers doubled in the last year, which might point to a revitalization of the travel influencer industry. 

Source: AnyMind Group

Analyzing the type of influencer campaigns revealed that most countries were focused on awareness campaigns where the goal was to reach as wide an audience as possible. The only outliers were Indonesia and Thailand who conducted performance-driven campaigns instead, where the end goal was meeting a certain number of engagements and clicks. 

Market Insights Broken Down by Country 

Here’s a breakdown of the influencer industry according to each country:

Cambodia

Cambodia is a Facebook-dominated market, with all the top 3 industries investing the most on this platform. 

Hong Kong

With over 75% of campaigns run here, Instagram remains the top choice for marketers in Hong Kong, followed by Facebook, and then YouTube. 

Indonesia

Nearly 70% of influencer marketing campaigns in Indonesia are conducted on Instagram, with TikTok coming in second place. 

Japan

YouTube seems to be the most preferred platform for influencer marketing in Japan – both by influencers and brands. The report also found that YouTube had similar engagement rates for different types of influencers.

Malaysia

Instagram has the highest engagement rates for macro influencers, and is the most preferred platform for influencer marketing campaigns in Indonesia. However, it was found that TikTok took the lead in engagement rates for nano and micro-influencers.

Philippines 

Instagram and Facebook, both, made up about 75% of the influencer marketing campaigns in the Philippines, with TikTok coming in third!

Singapore

Almost 88% of influencer marketing campaigns in Singapore are run on Instagram, while TikTok makes up 10%, although this is expected to change this year. Macro influencers on Instagram have the highest engagement rates, while TikTok leads in engagement rates for nano and micro-influencers. 

Taiwan

Meta-owned platforms Facebook and Instagram have almost an equal number of campaigns run using them. TikTok and Twitter are used very sparingly in Taiwan, so brands do not prefer running their campaigns there. 

Thailand

Even though Facebook remains the most used platform to run influencer campaigns, it has the lowest engagement rates! Although only 14.6% of campaigns are run on TikTok, this app has the highest engagement rates, meaning more brands will likely begin leveraging this in the coming year. 

Vietnam

Even though nearly 80% of influencer campaigns are run on Facebook, it has low engagement rates compared to TikTok and Instagram. TikTok leads when it comes to engagement rates, but only 7% of campaigns are run there, which will probably change this year. 

You can access the full report here. 

Net Influencer’s Predictions for Influencer Marketing in Asia 

Even though many markets are currently dominated by Facebook, the platform’s engagement rates are on a decline. TikTok, on the other hand, is growing rapidly and has high engagement rates. It is highly likely that, in the next year, we will find Instagram and TikTok dominating the markets in most of the Asian countries as brands will want to move to where most of the users are.