The effects of digital wave in Thailand

Thailand has currently become a more digitally capable country, especially when you consider the purchasing behaviour of the citizens of Thailand. The main reason for this age of digitalisation is the increase in the number of transactions via mobile phones and the use of various small electronic gadgets. Therefore, it is safe to say that the following changes in technology, that we’re going to discuss, will be felt all around the globe.

Increase in Digital Transactions


As the Government of Thailand plans to make the country more like a cashless society, the country will face more changes in the digitalisation sector. This means that banks will be more dependent on online transactions, and therefore the mobile banking platforms will help in creating more customer base advantage. The number of mobile transactions is increasing day by day, more than the transactions via ATMs and bank branches.

Preedee Daochai, the president of Kasikornbank (KBank), shared the same thoughts as well. KBank has a new high of 150,000 online transactions being held per minute. The same can be said about PromptPay, which has over 36 million registered users and has $6.13 billion in overall online transactions. Banks are also changing their strategies, by closing down branches that have low transactions and then opening new branches in places where there is a lot of users, like departmental stores.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and even various innovations in the digital sector, like robotics, have been a help for taking investment decisions and also use AI in data analytics as well. Transformation in the Digital Sector With the increase of Over The Top (OTT) and the Internet of Things (IoT) concepts, the digital market is slowly changing. With OTT, services or digital applications can easily rely on the online network to provide the user with the required content. There is no such sharing of revenue content concept here, and this might a huge threat to the local telecom operators, and also the generic TV industry as well, due to its on-demand services.

With the introduction of 4G and 5G internet networks, along with cheaper data, this will really bring forwards the IoT and OTT platform and therefore the traditional broadcasters will face heavy disruption.

Purchasing in the Cyber Department


The online shopping market in Thailand has been expanding at an exponential rate, with various brands moving slowly to the e-commerce sector. The income of the middle-class people of Thailand has been increasing, as well as the average spending as well. The logistics providers are also improving their services, due to more demand for online products and food, by providing faster delivery times and also prices that are competitive.

Social e-commerce has also been a major player as well, where Thailand has 48 million Facebook users and 11 million users on Instagram. The purchases on social platforms like these have been ever increasing as well, due to the rise of the Millennials. That’s why more Chinese products are being imported to Thailand via Alibaba, and that will continue to increase.

Booking via Social Media


With the use of social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and using services like SEO Heroes internet marketing services - the tourism industry of Thailand have really benefitted the travel, airlines and also hotels industry - as said by the VP of sales at Dusit International, Prachoom Tantiprasertsuk. New platforms like TripAdvisor, Trivago, with the help of services of Airbnb and Uber has indeed helped users do online booking easily.

The retail market is also changing as well, with the evolution in fashion and technology, and will continue to grow sharply in the coming years as well, especially the one-price lifestyle stores. There are 200 such stores in Thailand.

Sharing car services


Even though the Thailand government want to promote electric vehicles, car sharing is definitely on the rise and will lead to a decrease in car ownership as well. Car sharing allows for short- term rentals, which is calculated in terms of hours.

One can book anytime via mobile apps. This idea has become popular in Europe, the USA, parts of Asia and also Australia. Even though car sharing services from Zipcar, GrabCar, Uber has been becoming more popular, public transport in Thailand is still comparatively cheaper. By 2020, the car sharing industry will expect 26 million users.