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ew players in the online business sector have already tagged the country as a prominent market and plan to further tap into it through notable expansions this year as smartphone users are scaling up.

Maximillian Bittner, the CEO of Lazada Southeast Asia, said that Indonesia has become their number one revenue generator in the region in just one year.

“Indonesia contributes approximately 30 percent of Southeast Asian revenues,” he said on Monday during the one year anniversary of lazada.co.id, the local website address of Lazada Indonesia.

Lazada, an online store under German-based venture capitalist, Rocket Internet GmbH, simultaneously went live in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam in March 2012.

Lazada reportedly received US$26 million in an investment led by Summit Partners, shortly after a $40 million investment from AB Kinnevik.

Bittner added that Lazada Indonesia, which uses the business-to-consumer, saw revenues grow by at least 20 percent month-on-month in 2012, and expected to sustain the growth rate this year.

“And the numbers will explode with smartphone adoption,” he said.

A study by Frost & Sullivan estimates the 3G subscribers will constitute 45 percent of all mobile subscribers by 2015, up from 23 percent in 2012. By the end of 2012 itself, mobile subscribers hit the 350 million mark.

The strategy to keep up the growth is the introduction of a marketplace system with Lazada Indonesia allowing verified small businesses to market their wares through the store’s website. A majority of products featured in lazada.co.id are from big brands, such as Samsung and Sony.

“We are now reviewing between 50-100 businesses, but they have to undergo tests first to ensure that they can meet orders,” Bittner said.

The store has an inventory of at least 25,000 products in 13 categories and plans to launch a mobile application for people to shop from their smartphones.

Tom Damek, the managing director of Lazada Indonesia, added that the company was looking to expand their warehouse in Halim, East Jakarta.

Lazada controls their own logistics, including warehousing and a portion of delivery.

He added that they would gradually expand the size of their motorcycle delivery fleet from five to 50 this year.

Singing the same tune as Lazada is Rakuten Travel, an online travel agent and subsidiary of
Rakuten Inc., Japan’s leading online store.

Masashi Okatake, the president of Rakuten Travel, explained that so far, the agent has mainly served Japanese inbound and outbound travelers booking hotels. However, by August this year, Rakuten Travel will open an Indonesians version of their service.

“We have been successful with this in Korea, and now, we would like to replicate the success in Indonesia,” he said, adding that the country was a viable market given that Indonesians have caught the travel bug.

The planned opening of the services comes over a year after Rakuten Travel opened their office here. The agent has expanded internationally to around a dozen countries including Singapore and Thailand.

Before making their services available to Indonesians, the agent will increase the number of partner hotels, mostly three stars and above, in Jakarta and Bali, the two top destinations for Japanese travelers. 6.4 percent of tourists visiting Bali in December 2012 were from Japan, making Japan the third-biggest origin of foreign tourists.

“Jakarta and Bali see equal amounts of bookings,” he said.

“And this year, we plan to increase the number of partner hotels in Jakarta from 150 to 250, and in Bali from 300 to 500,” he said, adding that Indonesia was the third favorite destination in Southeast Asia after Thailand and Singapore.