Thailand's car ownership reaches 31 per cent

BANGKOK: -- About 14 million Thais, or 31 per cent of the population over the age of 20, now own a car, media reports said Thursday. According to a recently released regional survey by Nielsen Media Research, Thailand ranks fifth worldwide in terms of the number of total cars owned, estimated at 14 million, and has one of the highest car ownership percentages in Asia, said the Bangkok Post.

At 31 per cent of the adult population, Thailand ranked above Singapore (21 per cent), Hong Kong (16 per cent) and the Philippines (10 per cent), but below Malaysia (67 per cent), Taiwan (66 per cent) and South Korea (74 per cent).

China and India, although ranked among the fastest growing markets for automobiles, still have fairly low percentages of car ownership at 6 per cent and 9 per cent, respectively, said the Nielsen survey.

The US ranked first with the highest percentage of car ownership among adults at 89 per cent, or nine in every 10 adults, and a total of some 190.3 million vehicles. Japan was excluded from the survey.

--DPA 2007-05-03

In my opinion, kwai lek should not be counted statistically as cars.

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