Thailand is still number one for YouTube viewers in Southeast Asia
THAILAND is still No 1 in Southeast Asia and is ranked in the top 10 in the world for YouTube users, in terms of watch time, content upload and the number of gold and silver channel subscribers.
Michael Jittivanich, head of marketing at Google Thailand, said there had been 75-per-cent growth in content uploads on YouTube Thailand. Meanwhile, there are 25 gold channels in Thailand, which have more than 1 million subscribers, and more than 460 silver channels with more than 100,000 subscribers.
“YouTube Thailand is in the top 10 for watch-time globally, with over 65 per cent of watch-time on mobile devices, which is over 85-per-cent growth in two years, from 2014 to 2016,” Jittivanich said.
He said there were four main reasons YouTube is growing strongly in Thailand: chaining consumers, quality content, an engaging platform, and better advertising than alternative platforms.
TNS, a market research firm, found recently that consumers were making shorter and more frequent visits to YouTube. On average, Thais spend 34 minutes on YouTube per visit, they have 3.3 visits per day and they spend 1.9 hours on YouTube per day.
Research shows that YouTube is the most popular and preferred video platform in Thailand, revealing that for the 62 per cent of Thais who use the Internet, half of the time spent online happens on YouTube.
Other highlights show that 83 per cent of Thais say YouTube is one of their favourite sites; 81 per cent of Thais say it is the first place they go for video; 61 per cent prefer it over TV, while only 11 per cent prefer TV over YouTube. People in rural areas actively watch YouTube and spend more time on it than people in the cities.
People aged between 16 and 24 years prefer YouTube over TV.
Jittivanich said people preferred to watch YouTube because of its content, relevance and quality.
On YouTube Thailand, the top five content categories Thais watch are Thai music, entertainment, movies, international music and humour.
The survey also showed that about 59 per cent of people visit YouTube directly while 41 per cent access it via online links.
“The top five ways people access YouTube in Thailand are using ‘watch favourite videos’, YouTube search, external search [such as Google], general browsing and links from social media,” Jittivanich said.
YouTube will hold its second YouTube FanFest text Tuesday at Royal Paragon Hall, in the Siam Paragon shopping complex in Bangkok. Fans can meet their favourite international and local YouTube stars and enjoy live performances.
