Consumers in Thailand and SE Asia at the forefront of adopting new technology: survey
Southeast Asia’s GDP is still growing positively, in contrast with other regions, even though it was affected by several challenges including Covid-19, Ukraine-Russia tensions and inflation, a report by Facebook’s parent company Meta and management consulting firm Bain & Company said.
According to the report, “SYNC Southeast Asia”, on the region’s digital economy and e-commerce, the long-term overview for Thailand and the region is still strong while e-commerce could grow better than bigger markets such as the US, Europe and China.
Derek Keswakaroon, partner at Bain & Co, said that the region was positively affected by investment distribution from the Chinese market.
He said there were 159 million spending households in the region, which will increase to 175 million in 2030 with around 50 million households having high purchasing power.
“We found that investors who have confidence are looking for an opportunity to enter [this market], as it was an important factor that led to more investments from transnational corporations. It could be summarised that Southeast Asia is a growing region with several supporting factors.”
Derek said that the region is attractive to investors but it is important to control inflation, manage the supply chain, develop the customer journey, seek investment opportunities, develop new business models to be trendsetters, and most importantly develop personnel.
However, it is worrying that Thailand has the lowest investment percentage from transnational corporations in the region with only 2 per cent of the total value, so he advised Thailand to attract more investors.
The report said that there are 370 million digital consumers in the region and will reach 402 million in 2027, while 72 per cent of the Thai population could access technology this year.
Derek said that consumers want a combined shopping experience both online and offline and also a smoother experience.
He added that 16.4 per cent of Thai consumers shop through online platforms, higher than the region’s average of 15.3 per cent.
Moreover, alternative e-commerce channels, such as business messaging or live video shopping, are key factors for e-commerce growth in Thailand, which accounted for 25 per cent of total spending in the country.
Meanwhile, social media accounts for almost half of online discovery, consisting of image feeds (15 per cent) or videos (21 per cent).
Derek mentioned that video content has grown more than 50 per cent yearly since 2020, while the region’s accessibility to digital wallets, digital currencies, and NFT digital assets is higher than other markets, including China, the US, the EU, and Japan.
Some 74 per cent of Thai people used at least one technology related to metaverse last year, slightly higher than the region’s average of 70 per cent.
It is expected that metaverse-related technologies, including AR, VR, virtual world, crypto, and NFT, would develop from 2D applications to 3D virtual worlds within 2-3 years.
Moreover, VR usage in businesses from training and development to holding virtual events might actually occur in the region in 10-15 years.
Prae Dumrongmongcolgul, country director of Facebook Thailand, said that consumers are using more diverse online platforms.
Last year, Southeast Asian consumers used 7.9 online platforms on average, the number has nearly doubled to 15.3 this year. Meanwhile, the number in Thailand has increased from 8.6 last year to 16.4 platforms this year.
She added that consumers are open to experimentation while interactions help in driving new behaviours.
Therefore, it is important that brands must interact with consumers through video content while social media are still important channels for consumers when they decide to purchase products.
