Digital 2025 Hong Kong Report Reveals Over 80% of Residents Active on Social Media & Actionable Business Recommendation

With the rapid advancement of digital technology, consumer behavior and the way businesses connect with potential customers are evolving. The latest Digital 2025 Hong Kong Edition report offers a comprehensive analysis of digital trends, covering essential data on social media platforms, search results, and e-commerce. This article highlights key insights from the report and provides actionable marketing advice to help you seize opportunities in 2025 and drive business growth!

Recommendation 1: Maximise Exposure Across Diverse Social Media Platforms

Despite slowing overall growth rates, social media remains a powerful channel for reaching target audiences in Hong Kong, with platform reach exceeding 60%. However, this diversity necessitates a tailored content strategy for each platform rather than duplicating content across all channels.

KConnect is an all-in-one business management platform, offers end-to-end digital marketing services—from creative design to performance analysis—to help merchants navigate this complexity effectively. Collaborating with partners like Digitify Online Growth (DOG), KConnect assists businesses in managing social media accounts efficiently while boosting website traffic and fostering brand communities.

Through customised marketing packages covering page management, content creation, and ad campaigns, businesses can enhance brand visibility while bridging gaps with potential customers.

Recommendation 2: Capitalise on Short-video Platforms using KOL Marketing Strategies

The data reveals that short-video platforms like TikTok are experiencing rapid growth, presenting new marketing opportunities for businesses, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This trend allows businesses to connect with a younger and more active consumer base through short-form video content. To capitalize on this opportunity, businesses should consider adopting Key Opinion Leader (KOL) marketing strategies. By collaborating with suitable KOLs, businesses can more effectively reach their target audience, enhance brand awareness, and increase product exposure.

KConnect, in partnership with collaborators such as Happiness Self-Media and Try.Eat, offers professional KOL matching services tailored to business needs. For instance, Happiness Self-Media brings extensive experience with Xiaohongshu (Little Red Book), helping businesses expand their reach and unlock new opportunities. Meanwhile, Try.Eat provides an automated influencer matching service, enabling businesses to effortlessly connect with high-performing micro-influencers for optimal marketing results. These services not only significantly reduce the time spent negotiating with individual influencers but also streamline collaboration processes, improving efficiency and outcomes.

Businesses can create engaging short-video content and participate in trending challenges to boost brand interactivity and visibility. By leveraging these strategies, they can stand out in the highly competitive short-video market and capture the attention of potential customers.

Opportunity 3: WhatsApp Leads the Digital Communication Ecosystem

WhatsApp stands out as one of the most-loved platforms for nearly one-third of users—far surpassing other competitors.

This data highlights WhatsApp's prominent role in Hong Kong's digital communication ecosystem, with both high engagement time and frequency of use compared to other platforms.

Recommendation 1: Utilize WhatsApp Business API for seamless customer experiences

In Hong Kong’s digital communication ecosystem, WhatsApp has emerged as an indispensable core platform. It is not only the most popular instant messaging tool but has also deeply integrated into the daily lives and social habits of Hongkongers. For businesses, WhatsApp represents a direct, efficient, and highly promising customer interaction channel, enabling the establishment of closer and more personalised relationships with customers.

KConnect provides merchants with an all-in-one business management platform, seamlessly integrating WATI’s professional WhatsApp Business API services to deliver comprehensive customer interaction solutions. These services include automated replies, broadcast messaging, customer segmentation, and more, allowing businesses to effortlessly manage large volumes of customer conversations while offering 24/7 automated customer support. The system can also send personalised marketing messages based on customer behaviour, showcase complete product catalogs, and enable transactions directly within WhatsApp conversations through KPay’s payment functionality.

For example, by combining WhatsApp Business API with KPay’s Payment Link feature, merchants can set up automated chatbots to respond to customer inquiries, present product catalogs, and send payment links for immediate purchase completion when customers decide to buy. This integration not only enhances convenience but also creates a smoother shopping experience by ensuring seamless transitions from inquiry to purchase, significantly reducing conversion time. Through WhatsApp, merchants can also send order confirmations, shipping notifications, and even personalised product recommendations to strengthen customer loyalty.

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The landscape of digital marketing is constantly evolving, and businesses must stay up-to-date to seize opportunities and maximise profits.

Key Statistics for Hong Kong

According to the Digital 2025 report, Hong Kong has a population of approximately 7.4 million, with 96% (7.1 million) being internet users—a figure consistent with previous years. Notably, the report reveals that the average number of mobile devices per person in Hong Kong has risen by 4.8% year-on-year (17.4 million devices), representing 235% of the population. This indicates that each user owns at least two devices for internet browsing on average. These numbers underscore the importance of integrating mobile usage habits into digital marketing strategies. Below, we break down the report's key findings.

Opportunity 1: E-payments and Online Shopping Accelerate Integration into Daily Life

By the end of 2024, Hong Kong had 5.78 million E-payment users, with total annual transaction value exceeding USD 4.09 billion—an impressive year-on-year growth rate of 14.2%. Additionally, 37.1% of users in Hong Kong reported using mobile payment services like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay monthly. Online shopping has further driven e-payment adoption, with 45% of consumers opting to complete e-commerce transactions via mobile devices in 2024.

The reasons for online shopping remain consistent with last year — over half of respondents cited "free shipping" (50%) as a major motivator, followed by "gift vouchers and discounts" (44.4%). Additionally, nearly one-quarter highlighted "customer reviews" (25.6%) and "simple online payment processes" (24.9%) as key drivers.

Recommendation 1: Leverage Online and Offline E-payment Solutions to Enhance Customer Experience

The rapid adoption of e-payments reflects consumers’ demand for convenient and efficient payment methods. As mobile payments, digital wallets, and online shopping become integral to daily life in Hong Kong, merchants should embrace e-payment solutions to meet this growing demand.‍

KPay Smart POS Terminal supports 19 mainstream e-payment tools in one device, including credit cards, PayMe, Alipay, and Octopus, catering to customers' needs for physical electronic payments. Additionally, merchants should optimize their online transaction processes, as nearly a quarter of users consider "simple online payment procedures" a reason to shop online.

The KPay Payment Link feature allows merchants to generate payment link instantly and share them via messaging apps or social platforms. Customers can complete transactions in less than one minute without switching platforms—fast and convenient.

Moreover, the KPay App and Merchant Management System enable real-time tracking of payment progress and transaction records across all channels. These tools streamline operations by simplifying reconciliation processes while letting merchants focus on enhancing their services and products.

Opportunity 2: Social Media Dominates as a Key Brand Exposure Channel

Social media usage in Hong Kong stands at an impressive 86.6%, with users spending an average of 1.7 hours daily across platforms and actively engaging with an average of 6.4 platforms—highlighting its central role in daily life. Facebook and WhatsApp are tied as the most frequently used platforms among Hongkongers, each boasting a usage rate of 70.6%. Instagram ranks third, followed by WeChat and Messenger in fourth and fifth places respectively. TikTok and X also made it into the top ten. YouTube remains the dominant platform with an audience reach rate of 83.1% (6.15 million users). Facebook follows closely with a reach rate of 61.5% (4.55 million users), showing a slight increase of 1.1% compared to last year. Instagram maintains a reach rate of 49.1% (3.7558 million users).

Although TikTok’s user base is smaller at just 139K reachable users, its annual growth rate of 101% signals robust development potential.