Why is Internet usage so low in Thailand?

[Hal65]

For a country of its level of wealth, Thailand has a rather low Internet usage:

Malaysia is richer, China is about the same, and the other two are poorer.

I notice that smaller businesses don't have much of an Internet presence. The Thai girls I've spent time with seem to use their smart phones for social media but not actual Internet browsing. Maybe they're not the best example though.

Why is Internet usage so low in Thailand? It certainly can't be the lack of infrastructure!

[Kopitiam]

I reckon it has something to do with English language efficiency. I don't think there is a large Thai language content out there.

[mommysboy]

Because the internet out here is rubbish !

[MatteoBassini]

Because the internet out here is rubbish !

Second fastest in South East Asia. You get what you pay for. Don't expect fast internet when you're just paying 300 baht a month. Want good internet? Pay more.

[KittenKong]

I find this hard to believe. Most Thais seem to spend every waking hour on Facebook, even when they are supposed to be working.

[DTiger]

Don't know where you get your stats but these are obviously wrong.... Or we have a new definition of "internet"

[Langsuan Man]

Don't post meaningless statistics and fancy graphs without a source

For all we know your kid made this graph for a school project.......as Friday would say, just the facts mam, just the facts

Surely am not going to share this post since I don't know if it is real or not

[Pib]

The OP's stats for Thailand match up pretty close with the World Bank stats for "Internet Users (Per 100 People)." Per below World Bank stats snapshot it shows World usage at around 41 per 100 people which equates to 41% and Thailand around 35 per 100 people which equates to 35%. These are 2014 stats.

Now considering the stats are based on "population for every 100 people" in a country many would not be using internet such as babies/really young children, many old folks, etc. Now if you discount those folks which would be a very significant portion of the population then the percentage of people using the internet would be much higher. And then you have folks who just use cell phone service with no data plan. When it comes to stats it all depends on how you are looking at the data, maybe just looking at sub-populations such as a certain age group, the whole population to include one day old kids or 99 year old adults, etc. I know many of my Thai inlaws which are poor only use their phones for calls...no interneting for them.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.P2/countries/1W-TH?display=graph

[KhunBENQ]

Sorry to say, some pretty naive posts here.

No enough content in Thai

Internet usage is highly different over the regions.

In Bangkok every student seems to surf on two smartphones at a time.

Same for other big cities/centers.

Here in the village: most of the 40+ generation don't have the education, the money and time to deal with internet.

There are struggling to make enough money for a living.

Almost 50% of the population in China uses the internet? 750 million users?

I doubt this statistics.

Edited October 9, 2015 by KhunBENQ

[RKASA]

Lots of Thai's on smart phones running at low speed doing text is not internet use. In most areas the schools, government office etc still have no cable and it makes use of the internet to expensive - Bangkok is not Thailand don't judge infrastructure based on tourist traps and large city - most of Thailand is in the dark and begging for that connection - it is withheld mostly by design as they spend money reducing price and rising speed of those that already have a connection rather then running any cable to those that need it the most.

added: it is more a social problem then a technical one that keeps use low - thinking anyone that does not live in Bangkok and the like is to stupid to need it is a large part of the reason they never get cable - the cable will pay for itself - built it and they will come.

Edited October 9, 2015 by RKASA

[dageurreotype]

I would couple lack of English skills together with next to no curiosity about The Rest Of The World is the cause.

[AyG]

In contrast, Malaysia's government actively promotes Internet usage. It has made free-to-use Internet-connected terminals available in remote villages*. It has promoted the development of Bahasa Melayu-language content, and has developed websites specifically to meet the needs of rural farmers. Thailand does do much like this at all.

* Recent research showed that the users didn't like these terminals, and would prefer the government subsidise such terminals in the privacy of their homes. Of course, the major use of the Internet is looking at porn, and I understand it's rather embarrassing to be caught wacking off in a public place.

[KhunBENQ]

I would couple lack of English skills together with next to no curiosity about The Rest Of The World is the cause.

You still believe the "internet is English"?

Its English for the English speaking (a minor group, the world has now about 7 billion people) and for the tech savvy/well educated.

Do you believe these supposed 50% of Chinese (750 million! I still doubt it) have reasonable English skills?

I don't.

I had to work with some "engineers" for years (engineers which at best be called "coders" in the west).

Russians, Indians, South Americans doing internet mainly in English? No way!

French doing internet on their "ordinateur" in English ?

My Thai family (step- children, grandchildren, sister in laws family): except for two no one has English skills.

But they all hang on their smartphones, tablets, computers.

Village school has internet for at least four years.

Improved some two years ago (three WiFi hotspots).

In the district town at least a dozen internet cafes.

Unfortunately most of the youngsters are only online gaming

Internet for analphabets!

no curiosity about The Rest Of The World

Fully agree.

Edited October 9, 2015 by KhunBENQ

[KhunBENQ]

This statistics is BS.

I better trust Facebook in this case.

http://venturebeat.com/2015/09/18/facebook-opens-first-thailand-office-as-it-pushes-deeper-into-asia/

9th largest country in the world in terms of FB users.

In her announcement, Sandberg said, “Every month, 34 million Thais use Facebook to connect — and they post three times more than the global average.

Meanwhile, Thailand is Facebook’s ninth-largest country, boasting 37 million users, according to social media monitoring service Zocial.

34 million, 37 million

That alone is more than half of the population!

[martijn12345]

I wonder when is the last time these people took a trip around the country. I travel a lot and it's a hard to find places where True H does not offer 3G coverage. Surely there are certain areas without access, but they aren't often visited or densly populated.

Thailand has one of the highest numbers of % of people who have a smartphone. I know a smartphone doesn't always equal internet access but let's role with this for now. At least they will be used on wifi sometimes to install apps.

There are losts of websites that offer plenty of info in Thai for the ones who can't read english.

I think we need more info on the stats. If they mention % of people who use the internet on a daily basis, they could be true. If they mean % of people who have accessed the internet at some point in the last year I think they are wrong. Either way, while internet speeds are not as fast here as they are in western countries, I have no issues with either my home or 3G internet at all. It's perhaps 3-5 years behind in speed on my home country but it is sufficient for me.

[SOUTHERNSTAR]

I would couple lack of English skills together with next to no curiosity about The Rest Of The World is the cause.

There are 7 bn of us on the planet and +- 1,5 bn can speak English of which less that 700 mil are home language English speakers. As to your second comment, if you only have enough money to survive day to day it doesn't help to know about other countries as they could just as well be in another universe. Just for comparisons sake the average American travels to 6 US states in his/her live time and knows zip about the world, same same.

[Doc46]

Because the internet out here is rubbish !

Second fastest in South East Asia. You get what you pay for. Don't expect fast internet when you're just paying 300 baht a month. Want good internet? Pay more.

Your full of it ,,,We pay 900 baht and it still shit,,suppose to be good but slow as.

[gandalf12]

Because the internet out here is rubbish !

Come on it isnt that bad.

[gandalf12]

Because the internet out here is rubbish !

Second fastest in South East Asia. You get what you pay for. Don't expect fast internet when you're just paying 300 baht a month. Want good internet? Pay more.

Your full of it ,,,We pay 900 baht and it still shit,,suppose to be good but slow as.

How are you defining good? What is the basis that you conclude the internet here is no good? Do you know what rate you are getting for Download / Upload? Have you pinged the server and if so what is the response time?

Edited October 9, 2015 by gandalf12

[HerbalEd]

I forgot the exact number I saw in a couple of articles I read previously, but almost all that wealth is at the very top of the Thai population.

[bbbbooboo]

from my experience of using the internet in Thailand its so unbelievably slow and unstable that its nearly impossible to use. This, I believe, is why the internet usage so low....it cant actually be used in any sensible way

[WeeWee]

a traditional country where they can often ask their neighbour/aunty/cousin for the help they need. An insular, debatably xenophobic country to some extent. And a big yes to the English Language factor - most of my students only search in Thai. I show them things in class and they are completely in awe of what exists. Searching only in Thai script is very limited. I'm used to it now, and sites such as Lazada have sprung up, and online food delivery. We'll get there.....slowly!

[gandalf12]

from my experience of using the internet in Thailand its so unbelievably slow and unstable that its nearly impossible to use. This, I believe, is why the internet usage so low....it cant actually be used in any sensible way

Can't say I have had a problem with the internet in Thailand. Sure sometimes it is slow when you go to a popular site but that is due to the number of users at the site, nothing to do with Thailand ISP

Edited October 9, 2015 by gandalf12

[zyphodb]

Lots of Thais use the internet, but it's 95% Facebook, Line & online games, there isn't a lot of Thai internet content apart from this, & as most Thais don't speak, read or write English, or any other language come to that their internet usage is going to be very limited, I have a small rural internet cafe so I know this ...

[seancbk]

According to the recently released report "Thailand Startup Ecosystem Q4 2015"

There are 24 million internet users in Thailand, with internet penetration at 37%

The report is quite a good read

http://www.slideshare.net/Bangkok-Entrepreneurs/thailand-startup-ecosystem-q4-2015

Edited October 9, 2015 by seancbk

[JeffreyO]

More than 50% of the content available online is in English. Although China has nearly as many internet users as the English speaking world, the amount of web content is pathetic in comparison. Although some don't particularly like Wikipedia this article has plenty of good sources.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_used_on_the_Internet

According to this, 55.5% of pages in the indexed web are in English and the next largest language, Russian, clocks in at 5.9%.

So, yes, content plays a huge role.

Edited October 9, 2015 by JeffreyO

[Pib]

According to the recently released report "Thailand Startup Ecosystem Q4 2015"

There are 24 million internet users in Thailand, with internet penetration at 37%

37% percent internet penetration...matches up pretty close to the World Bank estimate of 35%,

[Shiver]

We have a modest internet based company, which over the last 6 years has customers in 146 countries. Pretty much everyone who writes to us, does so in English (with the Exception of some French and Spanish, so we have professionally translated content for them by native speakers). We've never had contact with even one Thai person in all that time, though we have had from foreigners living in or visiting Thailand.

I suspect it is not completely unrelated to how poor a job things like 'google translate' do between Thai/English compared to other language pairs.

Of the best English speaking Thais I can think of, only a small group of them can also read or write it to the same level as they can speak it, as I guess there is no need for them to do so (though when they do, their writing is very tidy, much better than mine, since I've been a keyboard warrior rather than a pen/paper person for the last 30+ years and I've lost the ability to some extent.

So where I'm heading with this, is Thais seem to have no need to go outside their own country for information if they don't suspect there is a world out there to learn from. How many times do we hear about some world event and Thais tell you something has happened, and you are able to fill in a lot more detail, only to by asked "how you know?". I think LINE/Whatsapp/FaceBook/CandycCrush fills all their needs, so don't see the point in having full internet capability. If they did, maybe they'd use public WiFi, but am unsure how that would register in the statistics as individual users or all appearing to come from just a handful of IP addresses.

Hope the tone of the above doesn't come across as Thai bashing, I'm just trying to figure out the difference in usage from different countries and their respective approaches to inter-connectedness.

[snowgard]

1. What is Internet usage in Thailand? Just Facebook, Line, Youtube? Or mean they really for everything like online shopping, online education, information, ecommerce, ...?

What I saw was just for Facebook, Line, Youtube and Gaming!!!

Ecommerce you can forget in Thailand completly. A lot of companies have websites what are after 10 years old and never updated. If you place a order or ask for information and prices you can be happy if you got a answer from 2 out of 10 companies. If you wrote in Thai it's the same.

Edited October 9, 2015 by snowgard

[dageurreotype]

I would couple lack of English skills together with next to no curiosity about The Rest Of The World is the cause.

There are 7 bn of us on the planet and +- 1,5 bn can speak English of which less that 700 mil are home language English speakers. As to your second comment, if you only have enough money to survive day to day it doesn't help to know about other countries as they could just as well be in another universe. Just for comparisons sake the average American travels to 6 US states in his/her live time and knows zip about the world, same same.

Despite my having been warned that those who aren't fluent in the English language aren't worth the bother to learn to speak Thai (or any other language which does not accommodate English as it's language of choice, come to that, particularly on the internet) I learned to speak Thai anyway. They were right. Those who are too idle/stupid to attempt to learn the INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE that is English, really aren't worth listening to. Unless you have a boundless capacity for drivel.