The year 2021 came and went like a breeze and the country, well the entire world, is still reeling from the effects of the pandemic. This single biggest factor has driven everyone to adapt and thrive, if not survive.
Some sectors though have shown more resiliency than others, with the current condition helping add up to their hyper-growth. Here are 6 sectors that have seen growth in leaps and bounds in 2021.
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FinTech
The financial was among the first things to get hit right away. In fact, days before the official nationwide lockdown, the stock market came tumbling down. Most banks were closed and the few remaining ones that were open only had a skeletal team and shortened banking hours. This forced everyone to move to online banking. Online bank to bank transfers became standard and with the introduction of InstaPay, interbank transfers became all too common.
Micropayments and e-wallets showed the biggest growth with GCash seeing tremendous spikes in user enrolments with one in every 3 Filipinos using the app and hitting over Php1 Trillion in transactions at the start of 2021. Payment processors like DragonPay grew along with many others like them. Banks joined in on the fray too, with UnionBank leading the pack along with BPI while BDO introduced BDOPay to compete with the likes of GCash. QR Codes became all too common for in-store purchases in lieu of cash.
TeleMedicine
With the hospitals overwhelmed and our health care workers exhausted, telemedicine found its way into everybody’s home. The Department of Health has vetted more than half a dozen service providers by the end of 2021 — TelAdventusMD, SeeYouDoc, MedCheck, TeliMed, CloudPx, HealthNow, CareSpan, and KonsultaMD.
Online consultations via video call become the norm and subscription-based plans are sometimes even tied up to their mobile postpaid plans, like in the case of KonsultaMD and Globe Postpaid. This proved to be very useful to a lot of patients who need immediate medical assistance without the need to physically go to a clinic or hospital and wait in line.
Online Class
Students have not had any face-to-face classes in two years so holding online classes has become the norm. Platforms such as Zoom, Google Meets, Microsoft Teams, Blackboard and Edmodo saw a huge increase in sign-ups and usage.
Many parents I’ve talked to have shared their fair share of frustrations and anxiety while juggling around WFH, home chores, and monitoring that their kids stay focused on their screen for the entire period. Make that double or triple the anxiety if they have several students at home. I’ve heard my housekeeper regularly scolding her youngest daughter who doesn’t seem to pay enough attention to her online class. It’s both a blessing and a curse.
Crypto
Bitcoin. Dogecoin. Axie Infinity. SLP. NFT. Need we say more?
(Further readings: What is Axie Infinity and Should You Play?)
eCommerce
It’s no secret e-commerce was already doing well in the Philippines before 2020 but the lockdowns forced everyone to source all their daily essentials online. From dishwashing soap to a can of cooking oil, picking out new clothes, or booking a Grab rider for tonight’s dinner — everything became accessible online.
Lazada and Shopee grew even bigger. SM Supermarket also launched their own online store and so has every other brand that wanted to stay relevant and reach their market. The market is so big even idol Raffy Tulfo launched his own Idol Shopping Network to cater to his tens of millions of followers.
Oh, lest we forget. Who here still remembers Dingdong Delivery and e-Commerce platform? Has anyone ever tried them?
PC and smartphone vendors saw huge spikes in their unit sales, mostly attributed to heavy demand for work-from-home laptops and affordable smartphones for online classes. Even tablets saw a resurgence in demand in 2021 due to online classes.
The ornamental plant industry also boomed in 2021 with prices of rare and variegated plants reaching millions of pesos per pot.
Content Creators and Online Streaming
From vloggers to podcasters, game streamers and live sellers, movie streaming, and BL series on YouTube, the year 2021 is definitely a content creator’s biggest break.
Filipinos turned to the internet so their daily dose of content. Netflix huge spikes in usage and time spent, kids turned to Facebook Gaming to watch their favorite gamers play, premium content creators turned to Patreon and subscription-based models as an extra revenue stream.
There are so many other winners in tech this 2021, some of them we can’t really appreciate since we don’t see their effect in our daily lives. The online delivery market grew with new smaller players on a provincial level, the start-up ecosystem became more aggressive as the race to find a digital solution to common problems in our daily lives became more apparent, and online sabong (talpakan) was really popular in 2021.
Boss Abe, its been a while since your last article. I’m a big reader of your site since the days of “abuzalzal” commenter was one of the famous! haha.. Congrats on the continuous success of this site!