Nick Walton, the company’s head of Asean markets, said the Thai office was opened in April this year as AWS witnessed strong growth momentum in Thailand and other Asean markets.

For the Thai market, the focus is on media, entertainment, healthcare, agriculture, start-ups, SMEs and large enterprises moving from on-premises data-storage facilities to cloud services. The Asean growth trend is consistent with the global outlook for cloud computing services, as evidenced by AWS’s staggering growth rate of 55 per cent over the past year, bringing revenues to a total of US$13 billion (Bt463 billion).

Asean clients are currently serviced by AWS’s data centre in Singapore, one of the company’s seven data centres in Asia-Pacific, Walton said.

Besides private-sector clients, governments in the region are another target group as some have already moved their data-storage facilities to the cloud to benefit from the latest technology, which makes storage and management of data more efficient and effective.For example, the government of Singapore’s Mytransport.sg service is now on the cloud, serving 2.2 million users.

Regarding Thailand, the government is preparing to launch the PromptPay e-payment platform for welfare recipients and money transfers involving all commercial banks in the country, making cloud computing services a suitable option, he said.

Toyota Tsusho Electronics (Thailand) is also using the AWS cloud computing service to manage data from 60,000 trucks and taxis equipped with GPS in the Kingdom, so as to help drivers avoid traffic congestion.

In e-commerce, Ascend Group uses AWS’s cloud service for its Weloveshopping platform, while e-payment gateway 2C2P is another user of cloud services to serve customers of Thai Airways International and others.

AWS provides an elastic service, so there is no need to sign up for peak capacity, while charges are based on an electricity utility model allowing users to access to thousands of servers instantly if needed and pay as they use, the Asean markets chief explained.

Users also have access to more than 70 services and a diverse range of analytic tools to capitalise on so-called big data, as well as voice recognition and other artificial-intelligence products for better customer experience in e-commerce and other business areas.

For Thailand, cloud technology also has huge potential to uplift the agriculture sector and facilitate the government’s initiative on Thailand 4.0 covering healthcare, the Internet of Things, and financial services, Walton said.

To prepare the country for the cloud technology, AWS also has worked with several Thai universities to develop local skills for cloud services that are replacing on-premises data storage and management facilities.

Besides Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam also have huge business potential for digital and mobile services, he added.

Myo Zaw, chief technology officer of 2C2P, said the e-payment platform’s Thai customers include Central department stores, Lazada, Thai Airways International and low-cost carriers, while it also as hotel clients in Myanmar and other Asean countries.

The platform, which uses AWS’s cloud computing service, allows customers to pay for goods, hotel rooms, airline tickets and other services or products via mobile banking and counter payment.

For those not choosing to use credit cards or cash, 2C2P has emerged as the platform for alternative payment, with an average of 100,000 transactions per day in nine Asean markets, Zaw said. He described the Thai government’s PromptPay service as another interesting platform for easier fund transfers, allowing users to move money just by entering the mobile-phone numbers of recipients.

Such a platform will help facilitate e-commerce and other digital businesses in the future, since it is suitable for making payments for e-commerce, airline tickets or hotel rooms, he added.

In most Asean countries, credit-card use is not widely popular, with a relatively low penetration rate of only 20-30 per cent, so alternative e-payment services will likely be more popular options.

2C2P also serves vendors and customers on Facebook shops with about 100,000 now in operation as social-media commerce gains traction, the chief technology officer said.

Goragot Wongpaisarnsin, assistant general manager of Toyota Tsusho Electronics (Thaialnd), said the company uses AWS’s cloud service to facilitate navigation planning for a network of 10,000 taxis in Bangkok and another 50,000 trucks using GSP equipment.