This month we review our ‘greatest hits’ for 24, as measured by you, our readers.

Live Commerce, Wealth Tech and Cybersecurity grabbed your attention in 2024, at least according to the engagement rates on our Monthly Tech Round Up newsletter.

However, it was our coverage of how geopolitical tensions are driving a surge in "war stocks" and Defense Tech investment that proved to be the most popular story we wrote this year.

Read on for a brief recap of our top stories.

At Number 4: It’s Alive! – Live Commerce

Google, with its vast data insights, understands that the way we shop is changing. Knowledge & Information Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan belled the cat in 2022 when he told an industry conference, “In our studies, something like almost 40 per cent of young people (18–24-year-olds) when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search. They go to TikTok or Instagram.”

Coincidental to those comments, BCG published a study with TikTok suggesting that “shoppertainment” could unlock a trillion dollars in new value for brands.

And TikTok clearly read the memo. As we reported in March this year, the Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) for TikTok’s live Commerce efforts last year in SE Asia was closing in on $US20bn.

Comparable figures are not yet available for SEA for 2024, but in early December, Matty Lin, general manager of Global Business Solutions at TikTok Southeast Asia, told Retail Asia its data revealed that brands who utilise live commerce capabilities were outselling those who don’t two-to-one.

And it’s not just TikTok, platforms like Shopee and Lazada have been instrumental in promoting live commerce in Southeast Asia, leveraging their extensive user bases and integrating live streaming features to enhance the shopping experience. For instance, Shopee's live-streaming feature has become a significant driver of sales, especially during major shopping festivals.

Business statistics site Statistica predicts that the eCommerce market in SEA will reach $300bn by the end of 2025, creating a happy hunting ground for live commerce players.

There are still questions however about how well the model plays outside of the region. TikTok for instance was bragging about a 10-fold increase in eCommerce sales in the US by the end of 2024 to over $17bn suggesting a strong opportunity for its shoppertainment model.  However, data from third-party platforms mid-year put that figure in serious doubt, with GMV languishing below $2bn for the year to date in May. By August, KrAsia reported the company was still chasing $12-13bn in the US in H2, but that seems like a stretch.

At Number 3: Who’s There? - Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity remains a top risk for boards and by extension a significant area of investment for organisations. The threat actors have evolved into a blended nation-state/crime-syndicated ecosystem that displays many characteristics of traditional markets – supply chains of specialist providers driven by a profit motive, and always on the hunt for the latest innovation that will give their business a competitive edge.

And business is booming.

The Asia-Pacific region saw a 15 per cent rise in cyber incidents year-over-year in 2023, averaging nearly 1,963 attacks per week against organisations. This trend is expected to persist, highlighting the growing cyber threat landscape. That’s true across nation-state attacks, such as the “work” undertaken by Volt Typhoon, a Chinese state-sponsored group that went after Singapore’s Singtel earlier this year or cybercrime attacks such as the March 2024, hit on Chinese e-commerce platform Pandabuy. The firm suffered a significant data breach orchestrated by the hacker group IntelBroker. With the personal information, including names, contact details, orders, and addresses of over 1.3 million users exposed.

As we noted in June, The Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and McAfee estimate that cybercrime costs the Asia-Pacific region approximately $US171bn annually. This includes direct and indirect costs, such as loss of productivity and damage to brand reputation.  

At Number 2: the Thundering Nerds – Wealth Tech

Our Wealth Tech report proved to be one of the most engaging of the year, noting that rising global affluence and intergenerational wealth transfer will keep the industry, which Capgemini says currently manages about $145tn in assets, trotting along at a healthy clip of 8 to 10 per cent per annum.

We noted however that the wealth management experience is ripe for modernisation, with venture capital-backed founders across the globe launching a volley of self-directed wealth apps to capture the hearts and minds of young and old alike over the last decade.

eToro, a global business with 38 million users whose “copy trading” innovation in 2010 established the firm as a leader in the world of social trading is a trailblazer. Then there’s the story of NZ company Sharesies which launched in the middle of the last decade and grew its reputation – and its customer base by focusing on ease of use, great customer experience, and innovations based on what founder Leighton Roberts calls a “minimum lovable product.”

EToro and Sharesies both operate in the world of self-directed apps, but the managed wealth sector is also in the midst of transformation. Names like FNZ (global), Orion (USA), Xplan (Australasia, UK) and intelliflo (UK, USA) are leaders in this sector and operate on traditional software or SaaS revenue models, with revenues in some markets – especially the USA – derived from both software fees and funds inflows.

APAC offers an attractive opportunity for Wealth Tech entrepreneurs. Excluding China, there are at least 60 online wealth management platforms that have collectively raised $1.7bn in equity. 10 platforms, including Indonesia’s Ajaib and Bibit, and Folio and WealthNavi in Japan account for 70 per cent of the money raised.

At Number One: An Uncertain World - National Security Tech

Our most popular story this year was Vale the New World Order from July, part of our National Security Tech issue.

We began by noting the somewhat depressing fact that war is once again loose in the world at a scale we haven’t seen since WW2. Those geopolitical tensions are driving a surge in "war stocks" and Defense Tech investment as VCs pour money into startups with cutting-edge solutions, from AI drones to hypersonic missiles. It’s not just military tech that is attracting investment, but also dual-use tech with clear civilian applications.

And regrettably this trend isn’t going away any time soon. As geopolitical tension intensifies, nations are turning to advanced technologies to surveil and defend themselves in new ways we might have thought unthinkable only a few years back.

The Best of the Rest: here are the other stories that our readers liked during 2024:

• Playbook for Expanding a Tech Ecosystem about the local effort to expand the tech sector in Queenstown, New Zealand, which we’re supporting

• Data Surge Dilemma: We Dive into APAC’s Data Centre Markets where growth in the sector is expected to gallop along at 25 per cent until 2028

• All-In Summit 2024: Hangin with the Besties: our review of the event which featured celebrity techies like Elon Musk, Sergey Brin and Mark Benioff

And finally, we also shared a wide selection of industry news from external sources. The most popular of those this year was: If Meta bans news in Australia, what will happen? Canada’s experience is telling. In the end, it seems Meta barked and Australia blinked. But the Australian government has subsequently proven bans are a two-way street – last month it banned Teens under 16 from Facebook and Instagram.

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Thanks for reading. We wish you a happy holiday season and will be back with more original content in February 2025.