Data use to drive growth

Data use to drive growth

Despite the fourth-generation (4G) auction delay, the telecommunication market's value is expected to reach 500 billion baht next year helped by the explosive growth of data use, says a global research firm.

"Mobile data will be a key growth engine for the local telecom market in 2015, with data consumption expected to increase by 28% per person per month next year," said Teera Kanokkanjanarat, senior ICT industry analyst of Frost & Sullivan.

Based on its internal research, when a country completes its network deployment, average data use per user per month almost doubles since a faster network enables data usage at much greater distances.

Mr Teera said the penetration of smartphones was expected to reach 50% in 2015, up from 37% this year, thanks to the greater availability of affordable smartphones, priced from 2,000 to 15,000 baht.

Growing demand for digital communications traffic and cross-border investments and transactions in the region after the advent of the Asean Economic Community will be another growth driver.

Mr Teera also said cloud computing was set to be the initial investment priority for enterprises next year with an expected market value of 22 billion baht — followed by cybersecurity, digital content and mobile analytics. The telecoms, bank and manufacturing sectors will be the top three spenders for the cloud market.

The digital content market is expected to hit 60 billion baht next year.

Frost expects the digital economy policy will have a strong impact on the country's economic development, Mr Teera said.

The digital economy policy could be divided into three stages: development of digital commerce, transformation of digital technologies, and consumption development of digital products and services.

The government needs to bridge the digital divide by providing internet access in rural areas. To achieve the, Mr Teera said all ministries and state enterprises needed to take a holistic approach in order to move forward in the same direction.

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