Thailand's Digital Transformation

Thailand’s government policies have expedited the country’s digital transformation as shown by the improvement in internet access, active users, trust, and e-commerce development, according to the Thailand Digital Outlook 2022 survey.

However, the survey showed that public and private awareness of digital-related laws remains below 50%.

Conducted by the National Digital Economy and Society Committee (NDESC), the survey interviewed 46,346 respondents from the public, state, and private sectors across the country based on 85 indicators.

In its fourth consecutive year, the report examines the country’s digital transformation based on benchmarks set by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD): internet accessibility, usage, innovation investment, digital-related jobs, societal aspects, trust in digital services, market openness toward digital tech, and growth and wellbeing related to digital tech.

The report revealed that 88% of Thai households had access to the internet as of the second quarter of this year, up from 85.2% in 2021. The disparity of internet access between municipal and non-municipal areas shrank to 6.6%, as opposed to 7.2% last year.

In the same period, 91.5% of corporate entities used fixed broadband internet, with 64% having speeds exceeding 30 megabits per second. The survey revealed that 12.8 million Thais or 19% of the total population used fixed broadband internet.

About 85% of the respondents said they spent an average of seven hours and four minutes a day online.

Some 23.6% of respondents said they had made purchases online in the past three months, while 40.4% of corporates said they used online channels for product sales. On the business side, about 62.4% said they run websites for business, while 69.9% employed data analytics.

In total, ICT industry players invested 530 billion baht in digital technology innovation or 3.32% of GDP in 2021. In the same period, investment in local tech startups amounted to 10 billion baht or 0.06% of GDP.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2378080/poll-finds-digital-gains