Despite political uncertainty and slowing growth, Thailand's communications market is expected to continue growing 2.57% in 2019 to reach 629 billion baht, up from 2.23% in 2018, thanks to government policies and changes in consumer behaviour, according to a study by the Centre for International Research and Information (CIRI).
However, 5G is not expected to have much impact this year and probably will not be widely available until 2021, as mobile operators still have 4G capacity and lack use cases for 5G.
"Thailand's communications market will grow in single digits over the next few years until new technology such as 5G arrives," said Nittaya Soonthonsiripong, the director of the CIRI. "The economy is growing slowly and competition is intense, limiting price increases even as costs rise for higher-speed connections and consumer use of over-the-top services."
The survey covered the national communications market and internet users in 2018 and 2019 and was commissioned by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC).
Of the 629 billion baht projected for this year, 366 billion is from communication services and 263 billion from communications equipment.
The growth will come from continued spending on government projects, the broadband village scheme and replacement purchases of smartphones.
The survey, commissioned by the NBTC, covered the national communications market and internet users in 2018 and 2019. 123rf
In the communication equipment market (fixed telephone, mobile phones, core network equipment, cables, access equipment and wireless equipment), mobile phones account for 122 billion baht in 2019 with growth of 3.98% as users need to upgrade to higher-performing smartphones.
In 2018, the mobile phone market contracted 2.5% for the first time to 117 billion baht as the economic downturn caused consumers to slow purchases of new devices.
Inside the communication service market, the largest sub-market is wireless service accounts, which grew by 257 billion baht or 2.4% in 2019 from 251 billion baht in 2018. This growth was due to competition in data price plans (non-voice) to attract users to change from prepaid to postpaid and consumers using more mobile data.
Fixed broadband grew at 4.7% to 79 billion baht from 75 billion in 2018 as AIS offered bundled packages to compete with True.
Data communication services, composed of leased line, data centres and cloud services, grew to 16 billion baht from 15.4 billion baht in 2019, mainly due to the increasing popularity of cloud storage.
International calling service (IDD/VoIP international roaming) continued to contract by 12% to 4.8 billion from 5.4 billion in 2018 as consumers used more OTT services instead.
Pipat Prommee, co-researcher on the report, said overall internet users in Thailand on both fixed and wireless broadband this year are expected to reach 50 million, growth of 5.5% from 47.4 million users in 2018.
Thailand's fixed-broadband subscribers are expected to reach 10.17 million, up from 9.23 million in 2018.
"5G still needs time because the high cost of investment, the lack of a business model and the current availability of 4G capacity is still at 50% with a high area of coverage," Mr Pipat said.