Here’s how Thailand is catching up on the ecommerce game

Photo credit: Dennis Jarvis.

Although not the most populous or wealthiest country in Southeast Asia, Thailand is currently at the epicenter of an ecommerce boom. It has the fourth largest ecommerce market in the region, a market that is set to blossom to a value of US$11.1 billion by 2025. The following factors are powering this progress:

• A growing number of Thai people getting access to the internet
• Use of mobile phones to access the internet and to shop
• Growth of social media platforms
• Launch and extension of 4G services

It appears that 4G development and the growing middle class are at the crux of the transformation, where faster connectivity is becoming more available to more people with disposable income. The rapid expansion has resulted in a slew of international companies and heavily backed startups looking wanting to form partnerships or launch ecommerce solutions in the country.

The recent numbers

Sixty-seven percent of the Thai population have access to the internet, according to the latest report from We Are Social. But in a population of 68.3 million people, only 52 percent are living in urban environments with easy access to internet.

Despite infrastructural issues, internet usage has grown 21 percent since January 2016, enabling 8 million more people to become active on social media on their mobile devices. The use of mobile phones in Thailand is well-documented with 105 percent market penetration and 96 percent of the population owning at least one mobile phone. Over 21 percent of Thais have a smartphone, 26 percent have a computer, and 11 percent own a tablet.

The use of laptops is on a sharp decline, down 46 percent last year, but mobile phone usage rose by 47 percent.

Here, we can see an increasingly online, mobile, and social media-based market.

Ninety percent of Thais use their phones as their primary means to get online. By far, the most common use for smartphones is visiting social networks—46 million are active social media users, about 67 percent of all Thais or virtually everyone who has internet access.

The average daily time spent on the internet using a desktop computer is eight hours and 49 minutes. The average for mobile phones is four hours and 14 minutes, over half of which is spent on social media, with 85 percent of the population noting that they use social networks at least once a day.

Bottlenecks

The boom