Why Zoom, Trip.com and Google are launching their Southeast Asian operations from Singapore
More than a
Regional HQ
ingapore’s appeal as a strategic location for regional headquarters has long been obvious. But that’s only part of the story. What’s now clear is that Singapore is the ideal base for all kinds of innovation, thanks to progressive policies and its strong connections to the
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“Singapore has worked hard to implement forward-looking policies that generally help businesses grow, and encourage innovation and trade,” says Stephanie Davis, Vice President of Google Southeast Asia.
Trip.com: Navigating a new reality
Asia.
Zoom: Growth amidst a pandemic
Travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic have effectively put a halt to international tourism. But Singapore-based Trip.com Group, one of the world’s largest online travel agencies, sees hope for the future in its hometown, which has brought the epidemic under control thanks to circuit breaker efforts. “Within hours of the official announcement on the easing of travel restrictions [from] mainland China, searches by our app users for flights and hotels relating to Singapore jumped 379 percent,” says Cindy Wang, Chief Financial Officer of Trip.com Group. The company sold $2.4 million worth of hotel stays during a four-hour livestream that showcased the city-state.
Google: Supporting the future of digital ecosystems
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increasingly dynamic markets of Southeast Asia.
All of that will require talent, making Singapore’s diverse, multilingual workforce an integral part of Zoom’s expansion plans. “Going forward, especially in Southeast Asia, our biggest task at hand is hiring,” says Ms. Bawa. “We’re looking to fill a number of roles currently that require market expertise, and believe me when I say we can’t get people in quickly enough.”
All of that will require talent, making Singapore’s diverse, multilingual workforce an integral part of Zoom’s expansion plans. “Going forward, especially in Southeast Asia, our biggest task at hand is hiring,” says Ms. Bawa. “We’re looking to fill a number of roles currently that require market expertise, and believe me when I say we can’t get people in quickly enough.”
All of this has come together to attract an ever-increasing number of high-profile companies. We explore the success stories of three—Zoom, Trip.com Group and Google—that for all their differences in approach share one common denominator: choosing Singapore for their Southeast Asian hub.
Just as enticing is what lies beyond Singapore’s borders: one of the world’s fastest growing digital economies. Southeast Asia is a diverse collection of countries, each with their own unique challenges and opportunities, requiring a nuanced and localized approach to new products and services. Many companies are realizing that Singapore’s strong digital infrastructure, cosmopolitan pool of talent and business-friendly regulations make it the perfect springboard for approaching the region’s opportunities.
“Singapore has worked hard to implement forward-looking policies that generally help businesses grow, and encourage innovation and trade,” says Stephanie Davis, Vice President of Google Southeast Asia.
She notes that one of Southeast Asia’s greatest opportunities “is the speed at which the region is digitizing.” Especially enticing for a company like Zoom, whose platform was designed with mobile in mind, is that much of this growth is focused on mobile internet. “In Southeast Asia, where many nations have leapfrogged desktop, this makes our offering a strong competitive alternative to other providers.”
Last August, Zoom announced it was opening its first Southeast Asia data center in Singapore and just this month, it’s announced plans to expand its presence in Singapore with a new Research and Development Center.
There were some kinks to work out, notably in the area of security, which required reinforcing as Zoom became the go-to for everything from sensitive company meetings to parliamentary committees. Then came expansion.
“Usage of Zoom grew from 10 million daily meeting participants in December 2019 to 300 million daily meeting participants in April 2020,” says Chief Operating Officer Aparna Bawa. “Initially, the team needed to work around-the-clock to ensure that businesses, schools, government agencies, and many more organizations across the world could stay connected and operational during the pandemic.”
Zoom’s video conferencing service business has grown slowly but steadily since it was founded just under a decade ago in Silicon Valley. Then came the pandemic—and suddenly Zoom became a byword for millions of companies, friends and families looking for a safe way to connect. But it soon became clear that the potential of a platform like Zoom went beyond the pandemic, enabling easy communication across long distances.
The next step is understanding the breadth and variety of the market. “It’s sometimes tricky to appreciate just how much variety exists in Asia, and therefore how localized we need to be to truly make in-roads,” says Ms. Bawa.
“Taking advantage of the expertise available in Singapore, we will be able to further strengthen our knowledge of local markets and build our presence,” she says. “Singapore functions as a launchpad for building up efforts in local markets, while remaining closely connected with international trends.”
Founded in 1999 as Ctrip and focused on China-related travel services, the company reached a global scale after acquiring Trip.com from U.S.-based Gogobot in 2017. It now boasts 400 million members around the world, with sites catering to 32 countries and regions, and products available in 21 languages. Ms. Wang says Singapore’s global connections and position as the business hub for a diverse region has helped it embrace the diversity it needs to operate with flexibility in a post-pandemic world.
Travel restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic have effectively put a halt to international tourism. But Singapore-based Trip.com Group, one of the world’s largest online travel agencies, sees hope for the future in its hometown, which has brought the epidemic under control thanks to circuit breaker efforts. “Within hours of the official announcement on the easing of travel restrictions [from] mainland China, searches by our app users for flights and hotels relating to Singapore jumped 379 percent,” says Cindy Wang, Chief Financial Officer of Trip.com Group. The company sold $2.4 million worth of hotel stays during a four-hour livestream that showcased the city-state.
The value of Southeast Asia's digital economy is expected to hit $300 billion by 2025, according to the e-Conomy SEA 2020 report by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company—and the pandemic has only accelerated that growth. “The level of growth and acceleration of digital adoption we’ve observed in this region over the past ten months is what we’d otherwise have thought to happen over several years,” says Ms. Davis. With its young, diverse and mobile-first population, and a host of innovative start-ups, Southeast Asia will continue to define the future of digital ecosystems—and Singapore is providing a critical gateway to the region.
Five years ago, Google set up an engineering team in Singapore to design products that appeal to new internet users, such as better mobile payment options. The city-state’s proximity to so many new users opens a window into how the internet works and doesn’t work for them. “Our research shows that the next billion users coming online for the first time will come from countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, and they experience the internet differently,” says Ms. Davis. “They’re not just mobile-first, but mobile-only. Being in Singapore, we are closer to Internet users in Southeast Asia, helping us to build a more inclusive internet for everyone, everywhere.”
More than 40 million people in Southeast Asia alone began using the Internet in 2020, bringing the total number of users to 400 million, with more than a third of online purchases or subscriptions in the region last year made by first-time users. That growth is shared by few other parts of the world. “This region is a bellwether for digital consumer trends around the world, with Southeast Asians preferring voice, visual and video content, and the adoption is driving possibilities for all in Southeast Asia,” says Ms. Davis.
Singapore has served as Google’s Asia Pacific headquarters for more than a decade, but its position in the heart of Southeast Asia has made it more important to the company than ever, according to Stephanie Davis, Vice President of Google Southeast Asia who describes the city as “the perfect vantage point for one of the fastest growing and most dynamic Internet economies in the world”.
Key to the city’s appeal is its high rate of digital connectivity, as embodied by the huge growth in Zoom users. And the bigger picture is how this strong digital infrastructure can serve as a springboard to the rest of Southeast Asia. “Singapore, as both a hub for the region and for data centres in general, seemed like the perfect gateway,” says Ms. Bawa.
Image courtesy of Google
Just as enticing is what lies beyond Singapore’s borders: one of the world’s fastest growing digital economies. Southeast Asia is a diverse collection of countries, each with their own unique challenges and opportunities, requiring a nuanced and localized approach to new products and services. Many companies are realizing that Singapore’s strong digital infrastructure, cosmopolitan pool of talent and business-friendly regulations make it the perfect springboard for approaching the region’s opportunities.
All of this has come together to attract an ever-increasing number of high-profile companies. We explore the success stories of three—Zoom, Trip.com Group and Google—that for all their differences in approach share one common denominator: choosing Singapore for their Southeast Asian hub.
She notes that one of Southeast Asia’s greatest opportunities “is the speed at which the region is digitizing.” Especially enticing for a company like Zoom, whose platform was designed with mobile in mind, is that much of this growth is focused on mobile internet. “In Southeast Asia, where many nations have leapfrogged desktop, this makes our offering a strong competitive alternative to other providers.”
Key to the city’s appeal is its high rate of digital connectivity, as embodied by the huge growth in Zoom users. And the bigger picture is how this strong digital infrastructure can serve as a springboard to the rest of Southeast Asia. “Singapore, as both a hub for the region and for data centres in general, seemed like the perfect gateway,” says Ms. Bawa.
Last August, Zoom announced it was opening its first Southeast Asia data center in Singapore and just this month, it’s announced plans to expand its presence in Singapore with a new Research and Development Center.
There were some kinks to work out, notably in the area of security, which required reinforcing as Zoom became the go-to for everything from sensitive company meetings to parliamentary committees. Then came expansion.
“Usage of Zoom grew from 10 million daily meeting participants in December 2019 to 300 million daily meeting participants in April 2020,” says Chief Operating Officer Aparna Bawa. “Initially, the team needed to work around-the-clock to ensure that businesses, schools, government agencies, and many more organizations across the world could stay connected and operational during the pandemic.”
Zoom’s video conferencing service business has grown slowly but steadily since it was founded just under a decade ago in Silicon Valley. Then came the pandemic—and suddenly Zoom became a byword for millions of companies, friends and families looking for a safe way to connect. But it soon became clear that the potential of a platform like Zoom went beyond the pandemic, enabling easy communication across long distances.
The next step is understanding the breadth and variety of the market. “It’s sometimes tricky to appreciate just how much variety exists in Asia, and therefore how localized we need to be to truly make in-roads,” says Ms. Bawa.
“Taking advantage of the expertise available in Singapore, we will be able to further strengthen our knowledge of local markets and build our presence,” she says. “Singapore functions as a launchpad for building up efforts in local markets, while remaining closely connected with international trends.”
Founded in 1999 as Ctrip and focused on China-related travel services, the company reached a global scale after acquiring Trip.com from U.S.-based Gogobot in 2017. It now boasts 400 million members around the world, with sites catering to 32 countries and regions, and products available in 21 languages. Ms. Wang says Singapore’s global connections and position as the business hub for a diverse region has helped it embrace the diversity it needs to operate with flexibility in a post-pandemic world.
The value of Southeast Asia's digital economy is expected to hit $300 billion by 2025, according to the e-Conomy SEA 2020 report by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company—and the pandemic has only accelerated that growth. “The level of growth and acceleration of digital adoption we’ve observed in this region over the past ten months is what we’d otherwise have thought to happen over several years,” says Ms. Davis. With its young, diverse and mobile-first population, and a host of innovative start-ups, Southeast Asia will continue to define the future of digital ecosystems—and Singapore is providing a critical gateway to the region.
Five years ago, Google set up an engineering team in Singapore to design products that appeal to new internet users, such as better mobile payment options. The city-state’s proximity to so many new users opens a window into how the internet works and doesn’t work for them. “Our research shows that the next billion users coming online for the first time will come from countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, and they experience the internet differently,” says Ms. Davis. “They’re not just mobile-first, but mobile-only. Being in Singapore, we are closer to Internet users in Southeast Asia, helping us to build a more inclusive internet for everyone, everywhere.”
More than 40 million people in Southeast Asia alone began using the Internet in 2020, bringing the total number of users to 400 million, with more than a third of online purchases or subscriptions in the region last year made by first-time users. That growth is shared by few other parts of the world. “This region is a bellwether for digital consumer trends around the world, with Southeast Asians preferring voice, visual and video content, and the adoption is driving possibilities for all in Southeast Asia,” says Ms. Davis.
Singapore has served as Google’s Asia Pacific headquarters for more than a decade, but its position in the heart of Southeast Asia has made it more important to the company than ever, according to Stephanie Davis, Vice President of Google Southeast Asia who describes the city as “the perfect vantage point for one of the fastest growing and most dynamic Internet economies in the world”.
Singapore has the world's most competitive economy, according to the IMD's 2020 World Competitiveness and World Economic Forum's 2019 Global Competitiveness rankings, while the World Bank's Doing Business 2020 survey ranks Singapore second best in the world. And compared to many other global hubs such as Hong Kong, New York, Beijing and London, office space in Singapore is remarkably affordable at just $117 per square foot.
Singapore has the world's most competitive economy, according to the IMD's 2020 World Competitiveness and World Economic Forum's 2019 Global Competitiveness rankings, while the World Bank's Doing Business 2020 survey ranks Singapore second best in the world. And compared to many other global hubs such as Hong Kong, New York, Beijing and London, office space in Singapore is remarkably affordable at just $117 per square foot.
Wall Street Journal Custom Content is a unit of The Wall Street Journal Advertising Department.
The Wall Street Journal news organization was not involved in the creation of this content.
The Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), a government agency under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, is responsible for strategies that enhance Singapore’s position as a global centre for business, innovation, and talent. Our mission is to create sustainable economic growth, with vibrant business and good job opportunities for Singapore.
Supported by
Read More
Tapping Southeast Asia’s
Market Potential
View the full, unabridged panel discussion
and read our event roundup
How the pandemic is surfacing new opportunities in Southeast Asia’s start-up and venture capital scene
Camels, not Unicorns, in Southeast Asia
Read More
Wall Street Journal Custom Content is a unit of The Wall Street Journal Advertising Department.
The Wall Street Journal news organization was not involved in the creation of this content.
The Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), a government agency under the Ministry of Trade and Industry, is responsible for strategies that enhance Singapore’s position as a global centre for business, innovation, and talent. Our mission is to create sustainable economic growth, with vibrant business and good job opportunities for Singapore.
Supported by
Read More
Tapping Southeast Asia’s
Market Potential
View the full, unabridged panel discussion
and read our event roundup
Read More
How the pandemic is surfacing new opportunities in Southeast Asia’s start-up and venture capital scene
Camels, not Unicorns, in Southeast Asia