If you believe the most optimistic estimates floating around, there are 1.5 million smartphones being used in Thailand and 500,000 of them are BlackBerrys.
Software developers and telecom staff doubt there are quite that many smartphones or BlackBerrys. Perhaps there are only 1 million smartphone users. But they all agree on one point: BlackBerrys are by far the most popular smartphone in Thailand. (RIM’s office in Singapore declined to estimate and doesn’t yet have an office in Thailand).
Interest in developing apps for the BlackBerry is nonetheless slender.
If a company is committed to creating an application for all operating systems, it will get to BlackBerry eventually, but that isn’t the first or even second system in the queue. The skepticism about BlackBerry’s future stems stems partly from the kludginess of the operating system, which developers and analysts worldwide think will soon be outpaced by the superior iPhone, Android and Windows 7.
Then there are the reasons BlackBerry has done so well in Thailand—and Indonesia. Prices for a handset are below THB 10,000 on the grey market, which is at least half the price of an iPhone and about the same as local smartphone brand Spriing and Taiwan’s HTC. The clincher for Thai and Indonesian consumers has been the reasonable prepaid monthly packages that include unlimited text messages. In Thailand a package costs less than THB 600 per month. Unlike SMS messages, these are conveyed via the internet but otherwise BlackBerry users tend not to browse the Web or use the other internet-enabled features that telecom operators would so dearly love to charge for.
Users of other smartphone brands and operating systems in Thailand probably don’t use many of their internet options either.
Many of BlackBerry’s most visible users, like students and female office workers, are a fickle lot. “Some say that Thais change their mobile phone every eight months,” said Freewill FX’s Nuttapon Boonpinon. Moreover, loyalty to the BlackBerry phone hasn’t transferred to MORE
This was a sidebar accompanying a story I wrote on Thai smartphone app developers. It appeared in the June 2011 issue of Business Report Thailand.
December 13, 2011
Posted by Suzana |
Business, Uncategorized | Android, BlackBerry, Business Report Thailand, smartphones, software developers, tech |
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By Susan Cunningham
Southeast Asia Globe
As discount deal websites explode in the region, a Thai company shows how it’s done.
Deep-discount deal sites have been surging throughout the United States and Europe for almost three years, but they were late off the starting blocks in Southeast Asia – arriving only in mid 2010. Since then, they have moved and morphed, bought and sold themselves.
In June 2010, when Tom Srivorakul and his two younger brothers launched Ensogo, the first deal website in Thailand, they employed five people and had a single offer: a 60% discount at ice cream chain iBerry.
A year later, when Ensogo was bought for an undisclosed sum by LivingSocial, the second-largest US deal company with a monthly revenue of $50m as of the start of this year, the start-up had 430 employees, 17 city sites in Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia and more than two million subscribers to its daily discount deal e-letter … MORE
November 29, 2011
Posted by Suzana |
Business, Uncategorized | coupon sites, daily deal, deal sites, DealKeren, Ensogo, Indonesia, LivingSocial, Philippines, Southeast Asia Globe, Thailand |
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By Susan J. Cunningham
Forbes Asia Magazine dated November 07, 2011
Thailand has long boasted a seafood superpower. Now second-generation leader Thiraphong Chansiri has made Thai Union Frozen truly global.
Last year, when the world’s largest tuna exporter announced it was buying 143-year-old John West and three other venerable European seafood brands in an $883 million deal, few Europeans had heard of Thai Union Frozen. “In fact, very few Thai people would know our company,” says Thai Union President Thiraphong Chansiri. “It’s our culture, our personality. We never paid much attention to the press.” For years it was primarily a contract producer for international brands, and it still draws more than 90% of its revenue from overseas, so it was enough to be respected by investors, analysts and heavyweight customers in the U.S. and Japan, he says.
That’s changed under the 46-year-old Thiraphong, the eldest son of a cofounder and the face of a company that never needed a face before. Thai Union has wholly owned the third most popular US tuna brand, Chicken of the Sea, since 2000. Now, with the purchase of John West, France’s Hyacinthe Parmentier and … MORE
For those that persist to the end, I’m not responsible for the many Thai companies that “floundered” in 1997; they foundered, of course.
November 11, 2011
Posted by Suzana |
Business, Uncategorized | Chansiri, Chicken of the Sea, Forbes Asia, John West, seafood, Thai Union Frozen, TUF, tuna |
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By Susan Cunningham
HotelNewsNow.com Correspondent
BANGKOK—Tourism in Thailand has bounced back strongly since the global meltdown of 2009, despite continuing economic doldrums in Western countries and Thailand’s continuing political instability.
New source markets have momentum, tourism revenue was up 8% last year and more than 18,000 hotel rooms will enter the market within the next three years. Yet the mood in Bangkok earlier this month at TravelTrends.biz’s “No Vacancy” conference was cautious—even somber.
“There’s a disconnect between luxury hotels and growth in mass tourism,” said Bill Barnett, managing director of Phuket-based consultancy C9 Hotelworks. “There’s a disconnect when it comes to infrastructure … MORE
July 8, 2011
Posted by Suzana |
Business, Travel, Uncategorized | Hotel News Now, Thai luxury hotels, Thailand hotels, travel trade |
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From helping earthquake victims to sending poor kids to college, they’re boosting the region in many ways.
We pick 48 givers, 4 from each of 12 countries. Some are big tycoons, even billionaires, who have a large vision of how best to help society and have donated millions of dollars to back up that vision. Others are little-known citizens who are extremely generous with their limited funds … MORE
Written by several Forbes contributors, including me.
June 23, 2011
Posted by Suzana |
Business, Society, Uncategorized | Forbes Asia, philanthropists list 2011, philanthropy |
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