Digital transformation and smartphone sales will be key to reaching Thailand's IT spending target of 440 billion baht for 2018, says global IT research firm IDC.
Spending is projected to rise 2.8% from 2017 and continue growing in the single digits to 471 billion by 2021.
"Smartphones will account for 35-40% of total IT spending in Thailand from 2017 to 2021," said Jarit Sidhu, head of operations at IDC Thailand.
In 2018, smartphones are expected to account for 181 billion baht of the 440 billion in IT spending.
In 2017, smartphone sales topped 177 billion baht, up from 134 billion in 2016, driven by the elimination of mobile operators' free phone schemes and the shift to subsidise high-end smartphones.
"In 2017, overall IT spending grew 12.4%," Mr Jarit said. "That's the first time it's seen double-digit growth since 2012. The overall IT industry, however, will revert to single-digit growth until 2021."
In terms of smartphone shipments, the market has already reached maturity and unit growth was flat at 22.3 million from 2017 to 2018.
IT services like outsourcing and cloud computing, infrastructure investment like storage and servers, and enterprise software also grew, thanks to the digital transformation of the retail, banking and telecom sectors.
Mr Jarit said that by 2020 at least 20% of all enterprises will have a digital transformation platform strategy and will be in the process of implementing that strategy as their new IT core to compete in the digital economy.
He also forecast the arrival of open application programming interface (API) ecosystems.
By 2021, he said, one-third of the top 500 organisations in Thailand will use open API ecosystems, though no organisations used them in 2017. APIs will let companies expand and collaborate with external partners, helping boost revenue.
Moreover, this year, 30% of chief information officers (CIOs) will use customer experience engagement and data monetisation to decide on the best locations for new retail stores, Mr Jarit said.
Cloud 2.0, distributed and specialised cloud computing services, will be another trend to watch in the years to come, he said. By 2021, spending on cloud services and cloud-enabling hardware, software and services will reach 48 billion baht.
By 2018, 30% of CIOs will refocus cybersecurity around authentication and trust to manage business risks and eliminate systems that cannot ensure data protection.
Talent will become an increasingly important competitive advantage. By 2020, 25% of new operation-based technical position hires will have analytical and artificial intelligence skills.
By 2019, personal digital assistants and bots will execute only 3% of transactions, but the technology will influence 10% of sales, driving growth among organisations by helping executives deeply understand customers' behaviour and recommend personalised offerings to them.
Mobile Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G will enable many of these technologies. By 2021, 5G-enabled IoT use cases will drive 50% of the top 500 companies to spend 200 million baht on connectivity management solutions.
This will not only be restricted to corporations. By 2020, some 22% of tailor-made, home-connected devices will face security breaches.
As these devices become more common, they will start playing a key role in financial transactions. By 2020, mobile devices will become the de facto payment acceptance terminal in Thailand for customers and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
QR code payment will drive 10% revenue growth in SMEs. By 2020, 60% of consumer payments will be made electronically (non-cash), an increase from 46% in 2017 and 37% in 2014.
