Groupon Indonesia CEO Ferry Tenka Talks About Mobile, Growth, and Oliver Samwer

At Groupon's press conference for its second birthday celebrations, we spoke to Ferry Tenka, CEO of Groupon Indonesia about his views on the e-commerce industry, the rapid adoption of mobile devices in the country, as well as Groupon's lead in the daily deals market in Indonesia and his admiration of Rocket Internet co-founder and former head of Groupon's International operations Oliver Samwer.

Until the beginning of the year, LivingSocial had been the market leader for daily deals in Indonesia before Groupon took most of the share and ran away with it. According to Tenka, Groupon Indonesia now controls roughly 70% to 80% of the market with Living Social picking up 20% and the rest divided among the smaller players.

A former LivingSocial employee who attended the event attributed Groupon's gains to the purchase conditions of many of LivingSocial's deals which were too complicated for consumers to meet, whereas Groupon's deals were more straightforward. Unfortunately he did not go into specifics.

Groupon itself though is more popular among women which make up 77% of its customers and 68% of its members are in the 18-34 age group according to its own data. What's interesting from the stats that Tenka revealed to DailySocial is that Groupon is growing despite the lack of comprehensive and seamless payment methods like PayPal or credit cards being adopted among Indonesian consumers.

In fact Tenka said that credit card transactions now make up 25% of all transactions on Groupon Indonesia, a rise from 12.5% a year ago. Additionally, 40% of its customers use KlikBCA, the online payment channel used by BCA customers. BCA is of course, one of the largest and most popular banks in the country.

Despite Indonesians embracing mobile devices however, Tenka said that there is no immediate push to deliver a mobile experience. The Groupon mobile app that's available for Android and iOS are not meant for Indonesia.

The company revealed during the Q&A session of the event that it is exploring the possibility of rolling out Groupon Now, the flash discount offer that's becoming popular in the United States. Groupon Now is being planned for introduction in Indonesia some time in early 2013.

Tenka revealed that Groupon Indonesia's e-commerce efforts had been its largest growth area so far. While the majority of sales are still among food and services, he thinks that the products category will be the major driving force in the future based on the increasing sales on a year to year basis. Apparently Groupon Indonesia is now making roughly 5000 deliveries per day through its courier partner Tiki/JNE. These are deliveries of products sold by merchants due to Groupon's discounts.

Tenka feels that the Indonesian operation was greatly affected by the loss of Oliver Samwer who used to head Groupon's International operations before leaving the company to run Rocket Internet full time. He said that while Samwer can be very harsh and over the top, he is actually an amazing executor who is super focused in making sure things are done and done properly. Without such direction from Samwer, he admitted that it would have taken longer for Groupon Indonesia to reach its current position in the market.

Ferry Tenka will be a speaker at Sparxup awards and conference this coming October.

[Correction]There was a case of mistaken identity during the interview which was carried over to the story. Marc Samwer, the eldest of the Samwer brothers is actually the former head of Groupon's International efforts. He left Groupon in April.