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aily-deal website Groupon Indonesia saw a huge increase in mobile transactions this year as consumers shift away from desktop computers on the back of the country'€™s increasing number of smartphone users.

Groupon Indonesia CEO and country head Indrasto Budisantoso said on Monday that more than 50 percent of online transactions on Groupon Indonesia were mobile, via smartphones.

'€œThis is a shift from our trend last year, which showed transactions via desktop still dominated our sales,'€ he said.

At present, Indonesian mobile browsing hits 661 pages per person every month, twice as much as in China and the US, he said.

Indrasto estimated that consumers would continue to do mobile transactions as opposed to desktop because the number of smartphone users also continued to grow.

The number of smartphone users is forecast to skyrocket to 103.6 million people in 2017 from around 61.2 million people this year, according to market research company eMarketer.

Indrasto said, however, that despite the surging number of smartphone users, only 6 percent of them do online transactions using mobile devices '€” presenting both challenges and opportunities for e-commerce players, including Groupon Indonesia.

'€œThere are still people who do not want to buy goods online because they want to see or touch the items first. Some people, meanwhile, do not buy online because many online stores traditionally require credit-card payment,'€ he said.

Groupon Indonesia, which is the local unit of US-based Groupon, has offered various payment methods, including by credit card, bank transfer and other options.

Groupon Indonesia would also in the next few weeks launch upgraded versions of its iOS and Android applications to enhance its users'€™ experience, Indrasto said.

The firm currently has millions of subscribers and partners with more than 5,000 merchants.

In the country'€™s huge e-commerce market, Groupon Indonesia faces fierce competition from other e-commerce players such as Lazada, OLX and Tokopedia, as well as from its head-to-head competitors, such as LivingSocial.

Indonesia'€™s e-commerce market is predicted to have a total value of Rp 295 trillion (US$24.3 billion) in 2016, a surge from Rp 94.5 trillion last year, according to data from the Indonesian E-Commerce Association (idEA).

Indrasto said that to stand out from the competition, Groupon Indonesia would mainly focus on being a prominent lifestyle e-commerce player by boosting its best-deal voucher business.

'€œIn Indonesia, we currently have the biggest market share for daily-deal websites,'€ he said, refusing to disclose details on the percentage of the market share.

Globally, Groupon earned $757 million in the third quarter of this year, a 27.2 percent increase from the same period last year.

From the total revenue, only 14.3 percent or $108 million was from the international market, including the Asia-Pacific region, while more than 50 percent was from the North American market.