Thailand
Thailand: Digital economy enjoying surging growth
Thailand’s digital economy is growing exponentially, particularly in the gaming, e-commerce and e-money segments, according to Sea Thailand, the local unit of Singapore-based consumer internet company Sea.
The company also aims to continue to support digital upskilling for the Thai workforce to drive digitalisation in the country as well as prepare the country for an ageing society.
“Thailand’s digital economy has continually expanded and it is now the second-largest digital economy in Southeast Asia,” Maneerut Anulomsombut, chief executive of Sea Thailand, said at a virtual media briefing.
“Internet user penetration has amounted to 69.5% and it is expected to continue to rise,” she said.
Thailand’s digital economy is forecast to reach US$53 billion in 2025, up from $18 billion in 2020, according to the e-Conomy SEA 2020 report by Google, Temasek and Bain & Company.
Citing a report by game and e-sports research firm Newzoo, Ms Maneerut said Thailand is a key market for gaming and e-sports in Asean with 32 million gamers, 95% of whom are mobile gamers.
Thailand’s game market was worth 28.9 billion baht in 2020 and is expected to grow 14% this year.
Regarding e-commerce, Thailand is expected to see a compound annual growth rate of 20% in the industry from 2020 to 2025, she said.
According to the Bank of Thailand, mobile banking usage has reached 68% of the country’s internet users.
Ms Maneerut said the country’s e-money transactions are expected to grow 15-18% to $1.1 billion this year, citing Kasikorn Research Center.
Sea experienced strong growth in the e-commerce platform Shopee. In the second quarter of this year, Shopee had 1.4 billion gross orders, increasing by 127% year-on-year, Ms Maneerut said. Shopee has a foothold in Asean and Taiwan.
Some 95% of internet users in Thailand have onboarded with Shopee.
Shopee will leverage data to further enhance the user experience with ‘personalisation’, ‘engagement’ and ‘social interaction’ on the platform, Ms Maneerut said.
For Sea’s digital financial business SeaMoney, which supports its business ecosystem, the company saw transactions worth $4 billion in the second quarter, up 156% year-on-year.
Garena, an online game developer and publisher under Sea, will continue to provide Thai consumers with new genres of online games to enhance and diversify gamers’ experience, Ms Maneerut said.
According to her, Sea Thailand has offered a variety of digital skill training for 3.8 million Thais over the past two years, particularly those related to e-commerce skills for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Skill empowerment is vital not only for individuals but also for the entire labour market and industries where a workforce shortage is expected as a result of the emerging ageing society, Ms Maneerut said.
Digital workforce empowerment will be one of the most critical actions to take in order to prepare the country for the future, she noted.
“We can now foresee the signal for changes in the next few years, such as hybrid working for productivity and flexibility; usage of AI and advanced technology for greater work efficiency; as well as learning and working in the metaverse world,” Karndee Leopairote, executive vice-president of FutureTales Lab by Magnolia Quality Development Corporation, a property developer, said at the same event.
In the next five years, she said, at least 17 million people, out of a workforce of 39 million, will be replaced by AI and they need reskilling.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2207919/digital-economy-enjoying-surging-growth