Thailand's logistics business is expected to continue thriving this year based on growing e-commerce, which is expected to top 3 trillion baht by year-end, says the Commerce Ministry.
Chantira Jimreivat Vivatrat, director-general of International Trade Promotion Department, said e-commerce has grown significantly in Thailand the past few years, with 2.8 trillion baht in transactions in 2017, a rise of 9.86% from a year before.
The business-to-business (B2B) segment contributed 1.67 trillion baht, up 8.63%, with business-to-consumer (B2C) making 812 billion baht, up 15.5%, and others worth 324 billion baht, up 3.24% from 2016.
"Based on last year's performance, Thailand's e-commerce business growth has leapfrogged, with prospects for 2018 expected to thrive," she said. "This has driven the domestic logistics business accordingly."
The department reported the logistics segment rose 10-20% a year over the last several years, with the market value estimated to be at least 28 billion baht.
Mrs Chantira said the logistics business is expected to be able to maintain healthy growth of 10-20% this year, driven by growing demands from B2B, B2C and consumer-to-consumer.
Given the e-commerce prospects, she urged Thai operators to focus mostly on online shopping safety to ensure consumer confidence and goods delivery planning, especially for express logistic services.
The Thailand Internet User Survey for 2018 by the Electronic Transactions Development Agency, conducted from June 15 to July 18 with 10,787 respondents, found Thais spend 3.41 more hours online than last year.
Generation Y (18-37 years old) and Gen Z (younger than 18) are the groups spending the most time online, at 10.22 hours, while Gen X (aged 38-53) and baby boomers (aged 54-72) spend 8.21 hours. Thais on average use 3.3 hours per day for social media, two hours for chatting, 2.35 hours for TV/movie/music, 1.51 hours for online gaming and 1.31 hours reading books or articles. The most popular social media forums are YouTube, Line, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Pantip and Twitter.