OTT TV Business and Service in Thailand Through the Perspective of Kanokporn "Jeab" Prachayaset, WeTV Country Manager for Thailand
- มกราคม 4, 2566
- 16:37 น.
As the COVID-19 situation eases, questions arise as to how the outlook for the OTT TV industry in Thailand is and in which direction the industry will go. Kanokporn “Jeab” Prachayaset, Country Manager for Thailand at WeTV and Chief Commercial Officer at Tencent (Thailand), has the answers.
Every service provider now has a clear standing point concerning its marketing. No one dares to say it has everything for everyone anymore. Each platform has begun searching for new content and developing its own content in order to establish a firm foothold for itself.
WeTV clearly positions itself as a provider of Asian premium content, mainly Chinese content that becomes available at the same time on the platform as in China,” Kanokporn said.
Thai prefers consuming content via smartphones and smart TVs
The audience in the OTT TV market consists mainly of viewers who are 18–40 years old. Most of them are consumers who live based on digital technology and use OTT TV service mainly through smartphones. In addition to smartphones, smart TVs are another popular viewing channel in Thailand. According to Kanokporn, the number of WeTV service users who are 40–60 increased in the past two years. The number of users under 18 who subscribe to the service to watch Y series, or series with two male lead characters, also increased at the same time.
Nevertheless, growth in the number of OTT TV viewers in Thailand might slow down in 2023 because the COVID-19 outbreak has eased, encouraging consumers to spend more time outside their home and spending less time watching series at home. WeTV is prepared for this change. It has prepared a variety of content to offer during that period.
Chinese series thrive alongside Y series
When talking about content popular with Thai audiences, Chinese series are some of the best selling content. Consumers in Southeast Asia have recently paid more attention to Chinese series.
The number of Chinese series viewers in the region increased 12% in the past three years. The region is ranked 2nd after South Korea by the amount of time that viewers spent watching Chinese series in the past three years.
This is in line with the development in Thailand’s OTT TV industry, where viewers are paying more attention to Chinese content. The COVID-19 pandemic in the past 2–3 years presented a growth opportunity for OTT TV service providers in Thailand, including WeTV, which recorded growth of 160% in 2020 and 150% in 2021. WeTV still aims for growth of 150-200% in 2023.
In addition, the popularity of Y series is growing among viewers who are 15–30 years old, which are another main viewer group of WeTV, resulting in more Y series being made available on the platform.
