e-frastructure to expand, home and abroad

Pawoot Pongvitayapanu, CEO of e-frastructure – a one-stop e-business and total solutions provider – said the company planned to raise around Bt100 million by the end of the year to restructure its organisation and invest in four subsidiaries.

 The four units are Pay Solutions, a fully integrated payment services provider for e-commerce business; RedRank, a search-marketing specialist; Zocial, a social-media information and measurement company; and Comparison, a product-price comparison website.

 He said e-frastructure had three strategies to drive its business: providing content and community for online business; offering communication and marketing for e-business; and providing an e-commerce platform to support enterprises seeking to take their business into the online channel. 

 “We expect that by the end of this year we will able to raise funds of around Bt100 million, and we will invest the capital in new business such as a back-office solution company in terms of business partners, [and it will also be used] to acquire new businesses domestically and expand the business base in the international market next year, including in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia,” said the chief executive.

 Pawoot said the e-commerce market in Thailand and more widely in Southeast Asia offered high growth potential.

 There is strong domestic potential as consumers have changed their behaviour and now increasingly purchase products and services via online channels, he said.

 

Foreign interest 

More foreign businesses are also focusing investment on the Thai market in order to expand their customer base, while network infrastructure will also play an important role in driving the country’s e-commerce market, he added.

 Pawoot said e-frastructure expected to play its part in driving e-commerce in the Kingdom.

 He predicted that the company would be able to generate annual revenue of between Bt300 million and Bt400 million by 2019, when it would also apply for a listing on the Market for Alternative Investment.

 The company is in alliance with Rakuten Tarad.com, Winter Egency and Thaiware to provide e-commerce platforms to the Thai market, he added.

 The National Statistic Office reported that the Thai e-commerce market in 2013 was valued at Bt768 billion, some 3.17 per cent higher than in the previous year.

 B2G (business to government) income accounted for Bt347.4 billion of the total, B2B (business to business) for Bt238.4 billion and B2C (business to consumer) for Bt182 billion.

 Meanwhile, Thailand is ranked seventh globally in terms of Facebook-usage penetration, with 34 million users or 50.58 per cent of the population.

 The Kingdom is also ranked third for both fixed- and mobile-broadband subscriber penetration, behind Singapore and Malaysia, respectively.

 The e-commerce market in Southeast Asia is forecast to expand by an average of 31 per cent per year from 2011 to 2015, while the Thai market is expected to show annual average growth of 22 per cent over the period.