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abila Fidiyandini, 23, a resident of Surabaya, East Java, has not only used social media apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Path to communicate with her family and friends, but also to shop online.

'€œI normally buy jeans, eyeglasses and necklaces,'€ Nabila said in a recent interview, adding that she spent an average of Rp 100,000 (US$7) a month on data consumption and spent an average of three to four hours a day fiddling with her smartphone.

She said she chose to shop online so that she did not have to go to a shopping mall or a local market to buy small items.

'€œI can do the shopping easily from my phone,'€ said the staffer for a foreign office representative.

Similarly, Gigih Yudha Laksamana, 23, a resident of Jakarta who works as a pilot for a private airliner, said he spent an average of four hours on his phone to do things such as communicate with relatives via social media, surf online or shop on the internet.

'€œI would say around 80 percent of the time is spent on social media, and 20 percent searching for information,'€ Gigih said, adding that he spent around Rp 100,000 a month on data consumption.

Nabila'€™s and Gigih'€™s constant engagement with their smart phones confirmed a survey recently conducted by Google Indonesia and released on Thursday. The survey noted that 61 percent of smartphone users spent an average of 5.5 hours a day on their phones, accessing social media, surfing the net and shopping online. Only 17 percent of the respondents being surveyed spent less than 1.8 hours a day on their personal computers.

'€œThis shows that the smartphone has become an integral part of urban life,'€ Google Indonesia'€™s corporate communications head Jason Tedjasukmana said.

Google'€™s survey also revealed that while people used their smartphones throughout the day, the peak period of smartphone use was during nighttime when people had returned home from work.

Google conducted the survey through face-to-face interviews with 2,500 people in Jakarta, greater Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang and Surabaya. The survey employed more than 600 volunteers to trace the behavior of smartphone users while those users surfed the web. The survey was conducted from November of last year through to February this year.

Google Indonesia'€™s country industry head Henky Prihatna highlighted the growing trend of using smartphones for online shopping.

'€œPeople have become more confident with online transactions,'€ Henky said.

A survey released by MasterCard in July said that 54.9 percent of Indonesian smartphone users shopped online using their mobile gadgets last year, a surge from 46.7 percent in 2013.

The percentage is higher than the average percentage of Asia-Pacific smartphone users making online purchases via their smartphones.

The survey, dubbed MasterCard'€™s Mobile Shopping Survey, said 45.6 percent of the region'€™s smartphone users shopped online with their mobile devices last year.

China, India and Taiwan were home to the largest portion of mobile shoppers with 70.1 percent, 62.9
percent and 62.6 percent, respectively.

Separately, Madeleine Ong de Guzman, vice president of the marketing division of Jakarta-based e-commerce company Elevania, said that the Indonesian market for e-commerce was promising.

She claimed that Elevenia'€™s sales had increased despite the economic slowdown.

In July, Elevenia'€™s sales reached Rp 135 billion compared to only Rp 100 billion in the previous month. (saf)