Filipinos spent over 4 million hours using e-wallets in 2022: study

The country’s growing population will push the active user base higher.

Filipinos spent 4.4 million hours using e-wallet apps in 2022, according to a new study by consumer credit service Digido.

Digido found that over 58 million Filipinos were active users of the e-wallet apps examined for the study, and estimates that the number of users could reach 81 million by 2025.

Digido noted that growth may be attributed to three key reasons.

First, the growing population of Filipinos aged over 15, which is estimated to reach 85.4 million by end-2025, according to the United Nations.

Despite the global recession, the current economy of the country is in its growth stage, at least as of Q3 2022, Digido claims. 

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Finally, the global demand for electronic money is growing with the global volume of digital payments expected to grow by 42.6% between 2023 to 2025, said Digido, citing data from Statista. 

The 58 million active user base is 8% or 5 million less compared to December 2021, but up by 466% compared to the user base recorded in December 2018. 

The study analysed 14 companies operating in the Philippines that have applications inside the iOS App Store and Google Play. E-wallets examined in this study are those owned or operated by companies possessing both EMI (Electronic Money Issuer) and OPS (Operator of Payment System) licenses.

Combined, these 14 e-wallets have recorded 114.4 million unique downloads as of December 2022.