Thailand Telecoms Market Report

Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

Report Cover Image New Release

Last updated: 10 Dec 2024 Update History

Report Status: Current

Report Pages: 195

Government encourages MVNO sector to address mobile market duopoly

Thailand’s telecom sector is relatively mature and hosts a mix of public and private sector players. The mobile market is highly developed and experienced strong growth for several years before a contraction became evident in 2023 and into 2024. The popularity of multiple SIM card use has resulted in a particularly high penetration rate.

The mobile sector retains considerable potential given the impetus of 5G, while the anticipated auction of spectrum in the 2100MHz and 2300MHz bands in early 2025 will enable telcos to upgrade to 5G-Advanced and to 6G services. The auction forms part of a wider spectrum management roadmap for 2025 to 2030, and while it will prepare the MNOs for future advanced services the market operates as an effective duopoly between True Corporation and AIS, given that National Telecom only has a very small subscriber base. To address this, the government in early 2024 encouraged the development of MNVEs to facilitate the MVNO market and to have a new MVNO set up in each of the country’s seven regions. By the end of the year this had garnered some success.

In the wireline segment, the decline in fixed-line penetration is expected to continue as subscribers migrate to mobile networks for voice and data services. More recently, the emphasis among operators has been to bolster their fibre footprints in key high-value areas. The transition to fibre from DSL and cable has also been facilitated by changes to the regulatory structure which have removed some barriers to investment. This is supporting the cannibalisation of older copper-based DSL lines by fibre. However, the returns from this investment remain a long-term prospect as consumers still favour entry-level packages.

There is also strong interest from the government, as well as private vendors, in establishing Thailand as a data centre hub to serve the region. To a degree, Thailand is exploiting limitations in data centre expansion in Singapore. The government in November 2024 approved a $1.96 billion investment to build two hyperscale data centres, while other investment is coming from players including Equinix, Google, and AWS.

Key Developments

  • Thailand’s mobile market becomes duopoly following True Corporation’s merger with DTAC.
  • Government encourages support to develop the MVNO market to improve competition in the mobile segment.
  • Thaicom 9A satellite moves to a new orbital slot and prepares for commercial launch of services in the first quarter of 2025.
  • Thailand’s Board of Investment (BOI) approves $1.96 investment in two new hyperscale data centres.
  • Report update includes Telecom Maturity Index charts and analyses, regulator’s market data updates to September 2024, telcos’ operating and financial data to Q3 2024, recent market developments.

Key companies mentioned in this report:

National Telecom, TOT Corp, CAT Telecom, True Corporation, True Move, TT&T, AIS, Thaicom, Triple T Broadband, AIS, DTAC, Cable Thai (CTH).

Related Reports

Share this Report

TMT Intelligence

A platform to scale your intelligence tasks

Monitor critical insights with our AI-powered Market Intelligence Platform gathering and analyzing intelligence in real time. With AI trained to spot emerging trends and detect new strategic opportunities, our clients use TMT Intelligence to accelerate their growth.

If you want to know more about it, please see:

TMT Intelligence Platform

Research Methodology

BuddeComm's strategic business reports contain a combination of both primary and secondary research statistics, analyses written by our senior analysts supported by a network of experts, industry contacts and researchers from around the world as well as our own scenario forecasts.

For more details, please see:

Research Methodology

More than 4,000 customers from 140 countries utilise BuddeComm Research

Are you interested in BuddeComm's Custom Research Service?

News & Views

Have the latest telecommunications industry news delivered to your inbox by subscribing to BuddeComm's weekly newsletter.

Unsubscribe