Telecoms consultancy Yozzo has released a report on Thailand’s telecom market at the end of 2015 in which it highlighted a vibrant, healthy market that is let down by mis-investment by the state.
Report author Allan Rasmussen told TelecomAsia that according to the ICT Ministry’s own national statistical office 25 million Thai citizens do not use the internet because they do not know how, 47,000 do not use the internet because of network access issues and 216,000 because they find it too expensive. However, the ICT Ministry is spending $427 million (15 billion baht) [on the state telcos] to roll out internet so that everyone can get online at cheaper prices - when that is obviously not the issue.
“It would be a wise move to teach them how to surf [the internet] as obviously neither lack of network nor pricing is the major issue,” he said.
On the plus side Rasmussen noted that overall the data shows that the Thai population is very well positioned when it comes to mobile communication with very high mobile internet usage as part of a daily routine.
“It is especially great to see the female population having a small upper hand with 83.9% using a smartphone to access the internet while ‘only’ 79.6% of males do the same,” he said.
The report also shows that 2015 was a record year in terms of smartphone sales, with 22 million units.
“Samsung is probably also smiling as 20% of this volume carried their brand, mostly due to the introduction of their Galaxy J series (J2, J5 and J7) but overall the 47% year-on-year growth in sales was due to the fierce handset promotions from the operators as they tried to move users from 2G to 3G or 4G handsets.
“In June 2015 alone, there were a staggering 1,800 different mobile device models competing in the market Thai market a clear indication on just how interesting the Thai market is for mobile device manufactures,” he noted.
In terms of social media YouTube stood out with a 70% growth in watch time and equal (70%) growth in uploaded content. But the real killer was that Thailand now has 18 local YouTube channels with more than a million subscribers each, which is 4.5 times the average.
The full report can be accessed here.