Marketing in Asia-Pacific: separate platforms, super-apps and social commerce

Asia-Pacific holds several of the world's largest digital markets, and they do not share one platform landscape. A plan built on the platforms that dominate Europe or the Americas will fit some markets and miss others entirely.

• China is its own ecosystem CNNIC counted 1.125 billion internet users at the end of December 2025, a penetration rate of 80.1%¹, and Tencent reported 1,439 million combined monthly active users for Weixin and WeChat at 30 June 2026³.
• Messaging apps lead in Japan, Korea and Thailand LY Corporation counted 100 million monthly LINE users in Japan and 54 million in Thailand at 31 March 2026⁵; Kakao reported 48.93 million domestic KakaoTalk users in the second quarter of 2025⁴.
• Southeast Asia is a commerce story The 2025 e-Conomy SEA report put the region's digital economy on track to pass $300 billion in gross merchandise value in 2025⁶.
• India is scaling its rules Its Digital Personal Data Protection Rules were notified in November 2025, with most obligations applying eighteen months later⁸.

For a team taking a brand into Asia-Pacific, the decisions are:

1. Which platform landscape each market belongs to, and therefore which platforms, partners and skills the plan needs.
2. Whether to plan inside a super-app or messaging platform, and what that means for data and measurement.
3. How to sell where people watch social commerce, creators and live video.
4. Which rules apply to data, commercial messages and influencer content.

The general method for adaptation is in global and local.

Australia and New Zealand are not covered here.

China's internet is measured by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC). Its 57th report counted 1.125 billion internet users at the end of December 2025, a penetration rate of 80.1%, with rural penetration at 69.5%¹. An earlier CNNIC report counted 1.050 billion short-video users in June 2024, 95.5% of all internet users².

The platforms that carry those users are Chinese. Tencent, for example, reported 1,439 million combined monthly active users for Weixin and WeChat at 30 June 2026, up 2% from 1,411 million a year earlier³.

Three consequences for a plan:

• A separate plan, not a translation. Platforms, formats, partners and measurement differ, so China needs its own channel plan, built with partners who work on those platforms every day.
• Read the platforms' own figures, with their definitions: Tencent's figure combines Weixin and WeChat³.
• Take legal advice on advertising and data rules before launch; they are specific to China and change often.

If the decision is to wait, write that down too, with the evidence that would change it, so that China is a deliberate choice rather than a gap in the plan.

We use super-app here for an app that began with one job, often messaging or payments, and now carries many: chat, brand accounts, payments, shopping and services. When a market's main app works like that, three things change:

• The brand lives inside the app The official account, its messages and its shop become owned media, planned like a website.
• Consent and data sit with the platform Customer data you collect through the app is subject to the platform's rules as well as the law. Plan how first-party data is captured with consent.
• Measurement is inside a walled garden The platform reports what happens inside it; agree in advance which results count and how they will be checked, as in the measurement framework.

A procedure for an official account programme:

1. Define the job. Service, offers, content or commerce: one main job per account.
2. Plan the consent path. Where people join (pack, store, advertising, website) and what they are promised.
3. Set a message rhythm tied to that promise, and a rule for when to stop.
4. Connect the data, with consent, to your CRM, so that what people do in the app informs what you send elsewhere.
5. Report by outcome: answers, bookings and purchases, not followers.

The e-Conomy SEA report by Google, Temasek and Bain, in its tenth edition in 2025, found the region's digital economy on track to pass $300 billion in gross merchandise value in 2025, with GMV and revenue each growing 15% and revenue reaching $135 billion^6, 7. E-commerce alone was projected at $185 billion in GMV and $41 billion in revenue in 2025⁶.

Where that commerce happens in social and video apps, the line between advertising and selling disappears. A workable approach:

• Plan content and checkout together. The creative brief names the product, the offer and the in-app path to purchase.
• Brief creators as a channel, with disclosure rules checked per country; see the influencer primer.
• Keep the brand idea. Social commerce rewards activation; protect brand building with a planned share of long-term work, as discussed in how brands grow.

Measure the two jobs separately. Sales inside the app show what the activation did this week; brand measures such as awareness or consideration, tracked over months, show whether the brand is still growing. If both are read from the platform's own dashboard, add a check the platform does not control, such as a holdout test or your own sales data, as described in measuring effectiveness.

The retail and e-commerce hub and the social hub list related platforms.

In these markets one messaging app counts its users in tens of millions, and brands talk to customers inside it.

LY Corporation counted 100 million monthly active LINE users in Japan, 54 million in Thailand and 22 million in Taiwan at 31 March 2026⁵. Kakao reported 48.93 million domestic monthly active KakaoTalk users in its results for the second quarter of 2025⁴. For a marketer, that makes the official account on LINE or KakaoTalk a core owned channel in those markets, with the same rules as any messaging: a clear opt-in, a reason for every message, and a path to an answer or a purchase. The messaging primer covers the mechanics.

India's scale makes its data the hardest to read. DataReportal notes that revisions by the ITU to China's and India's internet figures changed its global totals, and warns readers not to interpret such changes as hundreds of millions of people suddenly coming online¹². Compare like with like, from one publisher and one month.

Plan for languages beyond English and Hindi, written natively and tested by region, as in global and local. Then check three sets of rules, as of October 2026:

• Data protection India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and its Rules were brought into force on 13 November 2025 on a phased basis: most obligations, including consent and breach reporting within 72 hours, apply eighteen months later, and consent manager registration about a year after notification⁸.
• Commercial messages TRAI's Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations govern promotional SMS and calls; TRAI amended them in February 2025, with most changes in force after 30 days¹⁰, and again in September 2026¹¹.
• Influencers The Advertising Standards Council of India issued final guidelines for influencer advertising on digital media in 2021⁹.

Two practical consequences: build consent records now that show who agreed, to what, when and through which channel⁸; and check every promotional SMS or call programme against TRAI's customer preference rules before it starts¹⁰.

Illustrative, with no real data. A skincare brand sold in Europe plans to enter Japan, Thailand and Indonesia.

• Landscapes Japan and Thailand are messaging-led; Indonesia is commerce-led. China is left for a separate decision with local partners.
• Owned channels A LINE official account in Japan and Thailand, with opt-in at every point of sale.
• Commerce In Indonesia, creator-led video with in-app checkout, briefed with the offer and the purchase path.
• Brand One brand platform; lines transcreated for Japanese, Thai and Indonesian.
• Measurement Sales and repeat purchases per market, with platform-reported results checked against the brand's own sales data.

• One Asia-Pacific plan China, the messaging-led markets, Southeast Asia and India need different plans.
• Reusing global platform assumptions in China Its users are reached through its own platforms³.
• Treating the official account as an afterthought in LINE or KakaoTalk markets^4, 5.
• Selling only through activation in social commerce, and losing the brand idea.
• Waiting for May 2027 to prepare for India's data rules⁸.

Then use the Toolkit: the PESO channel audit per market, the customer journey map for in-app paths to purchase, and the launch checklist. The market entry hub lists related platforms.

• CNNIC's statistical reports on China's internet development^1, 2; Tencent's quarterly results³.
• LY Corporation and Kakao on their messaging apps^4, 5.
• e-Conomy SEA 2025 by Google, Temasek and Bain^6, 7.
• Hogan Lovells on India's DPDP Rules⁸; TRAI's regulations^10, 11; ASCI's influencer guidelines⁹; DataReportal on reading internet figures¹².
• On IMC Report: global and local, the social primer, the influencer primer and the messaging primer.