AS MANY consumers have joined the digital-lifestyle trend, and adopted digital products into many aspects of their lives, they have become familiar with buying their goods through digital-lifestyle stores.

Aiming to further build its leading position in Thailand’s digital-lifestyle retail sector, Copperwired has plans to grow 15 per cent from last year’s Bt3 billion in revenues.

The company has a strategy to maintain the growth of its retail stores under their three brands – iStudio, iBeat and DotLife. As well, they aim to increase the growth of online channels Dotlife.Store and MustLoveMac.Store to fulfil their customers’ shopping journey, and will also expand their digital solutions arm serving corporates along with small and medium-sized enterprises.

Papavee Vitchupreecha, retail director of Copperwired, says the company will increase its own brand-shop, DotLife to 24 branches in 2019 and 30 branches in 2020. The investment cost per branch starts from Bt10 million to Bt30 million depending on the size.

DotLife is positioned as a shop that allows customers to closely experience digital lifestyle products before buying.

The company has a total 5,000 stock-keeping-units (SKUs) from 200 brands to sell through physical branches and online channels. The highest growth categories are sports and health, along with smart-home products.

“Consumer adoption of digital lifestyle products is going very well. They are more concerned about product quality and service rather than prices and promotion, and that helps increase our revenue growth,” said Papavee.

Apart from iBear, Copperwired also operates digital lifestyle retails under another two brands – iStudio and iBeat. iStudio is an Apple premium reseller while iBeat is an Apple authorised reseller. Both iStudio and iBeat sell only Apple products and accessories related to Apple products, through six iStudio and nine iBeat stores.

The iStudio and iBeat are the same concept but with different sizes, with iStudio boasting at least 180 square metres while iBeat has at least 100 square metres. Moreover, the company has four iServe shops operating as Apple authorised service centres, she notes.

Laksawat Rienjaroensuk, the Copperwired product manager, says DotLife is the leading digital lifestyle store in Thailand, with a distinguished product variety and its unique offer of a hands-on customer experience environment and well-trained staff providing service.

“The variety of interesting products are the key success factor of DotLife, therefore product sourcing is our key challenge to success,” said Leksawat.

“We have over 200 product brands sourced by Copperwired and its subsidiary company Koan, which is a digital/technology distributor. We are always looking for the new and trendy products to offer through our stores.

“Of the 5,000 SKUs, some are new that we added in, some we deleted from the catalogue and do not sell anymore. We always have new products to add into our product portfolios.”

He says Copperwired started its online stores as an Apple authorised online reseller, with the aim of supporting the company’s omni-channel strategy to facilitate customer to experiences in an online-to-offline shopping journey.

“For one and a half years, we have operated online stores, and the latest revenue as of December 2018 has increased 1,000 times from day one,” said Laksawat.

Moreover, the company this year plans to expand to provide digital solutions for corporates and SMEs, in addition to condos and villages.

It targets to gain Bt50 million in revenue for 2019.

This year, the company also plans to utilise a database of 500,000 members to create precise and personalised marketing to individual customers.

“We have collected a customer database over three years now and have 500,000 members. We had a trial of customised electronic direct marketing to them and found that we had a 40 per cent ‘opening rate’, which is a huge ratios. So, this year we will focus more on using our customer database to do precision marketing,” said Papavee.

She said that because digital products are now blended into people’s lifestyles, consumer have adapted well, love the experience of trying new products, and prefer an online-to-offline shopping journey when buying digital products.

And those are just a couple of the new features.  The shape is shifting from the curvy look, bringing it in line with the flatter iPhone SE. The headphone jack is gone, allowing a thinner design. And it is a lot more compact inside due to the home-button removal.

The latest version is clearly an upgrade, with no real trade-offs. With the home button gone, your interaction will be much like using an iPhone, but there are also some slight differences because iOS on iPad is different from iOS on the iPhone. Still, it is very similar.

At first blush the latest version appears similar to the first iPad, launched in 2010, but a closer look reveals huge differences. The graphic capability of the iPad Pro 3rd Gen is 1,000 times faster than the original iPad – and so has come a long way in eight years.

The basic form is really thin and light. This smaller iPad Pro retains the same weight as the previous generation, but with a larger screen. The previous generation is 10.5 inches, while this one is 11 inches. The larger iPad Pro, on the other hand, while strong inside and retaining the same 12.9 inch screen, is 25 per cent smaller in term of volume compared to the previous generation. And that is because it also is smaller and thinner.

With the home button gone, we can use Face ID, which has been redesigned and reengineered to work specifically for the iPad Pro. Face ID can identify you regardless of the orientation. And it has been reengineered to support all of the different ways that Face ID can be used by an iPad.

But how to navigate the iPad when the home button is gone? Well, it is similar to iPhone, in that you swipe up from anywhere to go back to the home screen. However, for the iPad, if you swipe up and hold in the middle, you can go to all the pages that you have used, quickly switching between different apps.

Meanwhile, the 7-megapixel TrueDepth camera is the same as that found in the iPhone XS. Portrait mode, smart HDR, portrait lighting – all the functionality people love in the iPhone X or iPhone XS is now available on the iPad Pro for the first time.

The most colour-accurate panel results in a bright screen able to support 25 per cent more colour than can an RBG screen. It offers a true tone, giving a more natural viewing experience under any light conditions.

Through ProMotion, the screen can refresh at 120 times per second, double the performance of a regular screen, and delivering increased responsiveness to the touch or the Apple Pencil. ProMotion is also dynamic, going up or down depending on what you do. The Liquid Retina display, similar to the panel on the iPhone XR, is an LCD screen and curves around the edges.

The iPadPro has four speakers, each of which play bass, with the upper two also playing the mid and high tones to ensure constant sound balance. The speakers are really smart, and change in response to the tablet’s changing orientation.

Performance is based on the 8-core, A12X Fusion Chip, up to 90 per cent faster compared to the previous generation. The graphic perspective is twice as fast. For first time, iPad has a neural engine similar to the one in the iPhone XS.

Also, it comes with two new design accessories, the Apple Pencil and the Smart Keyboard.  The Apple Pencil Gen II, does not need a connecting line, being magnetically attached to the iPad. It is always charging when attached to the tablet, and always ready for use. iPad Pro can achieve up to 10 hours of all-day battery life, and while charging the pencil consumes juice its impact is minimal.

In Note app, you can double tap to switch between pencil and eraser. It also supports third-party apps, such as Procreate, in which a quick menu is launched when you tap the pencil. To use MarkUp, take a screen shot and then express yourself with the pencil.

MyScript, a note-taking app, also supports the taping feature of the pencil. A double-tap of the pencil changes between handwriting and text formats, which can be copied and also give you a word count. The new smart keyboard can protect the front and back of the iPad and continues the use of a smart connector to avoid the need to pair. The smart connector can move from the left side to the back and offers two different viewing angles. Shortcuts are also available through the keyboard.

Last but not least, the USB-C port means you can connect directly to a bunch of accessories, the monitor, camera and storage with no need for an adapter anymore. It is easier. The data capacity has also doubled. It is basically USB-C 2.1 speed, you can import raw photos and raw video at twice the data capacity.

Another cool thing is that your iPad Pro can now be used to charge your iPhone, just like a Mac. This is a first for the iPad. Some USB-C-monitors can also charge the iPad at the same time. USBC also means the iPad Pro can now use the same adapter as MacBook Pro, along with USB-C to HDMI and USB-C to LAN – all the adapters you can use on MacBook Pro can also now be used on iPad Pro too. You can also use USBC to SD card and USBC to (wireless) headphone.

The iPad Pro is smaller but more powerful, and at the same time the battery juice seems to always be there. It offers a large retina display with advanced camera and neural engine performance, making the iPad the ultimate device for augmented reality experiences. And with the USCB port, the iPad can connect to a lot of devices.

Nattaorn Sanudomchok, founder and chief executive officer of Big Blue, said that the company this year is expanding to offer total digital marketing services to its customers, which are brands targeting consumers in Laos.

Nattaorn started Big Blue in Laos more than a decade ago as an out of home media agency. She has been successful in expanding her business in Laos day by day to the point that it has become the market leader in the country.

“Now Big Blue is one of the leading media agencies in Laos,” said Nattaorn.

The company’s main customer base, at around 80 per cent of the total, are large corporations from Thailand that are targeting customers in Laos. Some 20 per cent are companies, such as UnionPay, operating in Laos and other countries in Southeast Asia. Its customers in Laos also include Vietnamese media agencies operating in that country .

Currently, the core business of Big Blue is out of home media, followed by public relations and advertising services. The growth in digital services in Laos prompted the company to expand its services to cover the online and digital landscapes. The company has joined with partners to offer digital services, including digital signage solutions and digital marketing services in Laos.

“Around 70 per cent of our revenue comes from out of home media, while 30 per cent come from PR and adverting equally,” said Nattaorn.

The company’s 2019 direction is to maintain growth in out of home media, while expanding to online media.

Big Blue partnered with Nextsys Network Limited (Thailand), a digital signage system developer, and SLT Network (Laos), a Lao Internet service provider, to offer digital signage advertising services, Wi-Fi advertising and digital e-business application services. The move is aimed at connecting out of home media to online platforms to facilitate brands’ advertising going through the end-user/consumer journey, which is undertaken seamlessly through online-to-offline (O2O) channels, Nattaorn said.

Digital signage also helps create the Big Data of customer information required by brands. The company plans to install digital signage advertising solutions in more than 50 locations in Vientiane in the first three months of 2019. It plans to increase this number to 200 locations by the end of 2019.

Nattaorn said that, according to Facebook, around 2 million people in Laos are online, out of a population of 3.8 million.

The company has partnered with DotMatter to provide digital marketing and digital PR services to its customers.

Citing the latest findings of leading Internet platform Sea Group’s survey on youth and entrepreneurship in Thailand and other Asean countries, Dr Santitarn Sathirathai, the group’s chief economist, said the corporate sector, government, universities and other stakeholders must work together on the Thailand 4.0 youth education initiative.

Both online and offline education, training and other human-resource development programmes are facing new challenges because of the advent of data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), fifth-generation (5G) mobile network, blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT) and other technologies which make the traditional education approach increasingly irrelevant.

Santitarn said the boundary between teachers and students is also fading due to rapid technological advancement, so it is necessary to adopt the life-long education concept in which universities and other higher-learning institutes connect with industries and large businesses. So, industrial organisations have to function more like universities.

In the new approach, he said, education means coaching and motivating along with lecturing, while science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) form the youth’s core knowledge together with empathy, creativity, teamwork and critical-thinking skills.

So far, information, communication and other technologies have boosted economic productivity by around 30 per cent resulting in job displacement in various sectors from manufacturing to banking, e-commerce and retail, among others.

As a result, the next generation of workers will need to have the right digital and other skills to meet demands amid the global shift towards new job categories.

In this context, a coalition of global and regional technology companies, including Sea Group, Microsoft, Grab, Cisco, Tokopedia, Google and Lazada have pledged to boost the skills of SMEs and the workforce in Asean countries.

In Thailand, Sea Group has been working with SMEs on e-commerce skill sets as well as universities on e-sport and related curriculum. In Singapore, it is organising a data-science competition in partnership with local universities.

While some traditional jobs have disappeared, new jobs such as data scientists, e-sport casters and others have emerged, requiring new skill sets. For example, there has been a high demand for data scientists to develop product recognition features for AI and other new technologies on e-commerce platforms.

As for online education in Thailand, he said, 60 per cent of respondents are satisfied with the results, but Thai youths still face a challenge with the English language and many need to change their mindset and get out of their comfort zone to learn new skills.

In addition, Thais need easier access to online education, whose contents also need to be more specific to their needs.

To drive the challenge of giving the workforce new skills, he said, the country needs effective leaders with the right mindset in government, corporate, education and other sectors.

In relation to the Asean youth and entrepreneurship survey, jointly conducted by Sea Group and the World Economic Forum, it shows that Thai youth have the most entrepreneurial spirit in the region, with some 13 per cent of respondents more likely to become entrepreneurs.

In this context, a significantly higher proportion of Thai youths without a Bachelor’s degree want to become entrepreneurs. Among those already working for SMEs, the majority of respondents also want to start their own business, with only 20 per cent wanting to continue working for their current employers.

With a rapid shift in technology, the nature of required jobs and skills are also changing quickly, so young people need both formal education and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances, according to the survey, whose findings were announced in November last year.

Among Thai SMEs, the survey shows that less than 50 per cent use digital tools largely because they do not have the knowledge, even though these tools can facilitate business scaling, boost productivity and reduce risks.

For example, e-commerce is seen as a tool to tackle the shortage of talent since more young people say they want to start their own business, and also reducing risks because it allows business owners to test new ideas and the market before committing large resources.

According to Santitarn, Sea Group operates the Shopee e-commerce platforms, Garina digital entertainment and gaming platforms and Airpay digital financial service platforms in Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore.

Mizuho Financial Group Inc. will issue its own digital currency from March at the earliest, which will allow users to make cashless payments via smartphones and fee-free cash transfers among users, it has been learned.

The currency will be the first to be issued by a megabank.

The new project will involve about 60 regional banks, with Mizuho aiming to have more participating banks, according to sources.

 Under the J-Coin (tentative name) scheme, users can make payments with a QR code on a smartphone app at stores and can also transfer money from their bank accounts to the app in advance, and vise versa.

Many companies have already entered into the cashless payment business in the form of QR codes on smartphone apps, among other technologies.

However, shops cannot cope with all types of cashless systems. Under these circumstances, Mizuho plans to further increase the number of participating regional banks to expand its J-Coin alliance.

Shops usually pay part of consumers’ settlement to credit card companies as commissions when they get paid via credit cards or e-money.

Under the J-Coin scheme, such commissions can be kept low. Mizuho has made it possible for regional banks to utilize the scheme and issue their own-brand coins.

In the future, Mizuho hopes to eventually allow J-Coin to be used for salary payments as well as team up with Alipay — an online payment platform that uses QR codes, which is widespread in China — to allow foreign visitors to make payments smoothly in Japan.

New service to reap data boon

“The business of financial settlements has become more important and is expected to continue to grow. So we have to take a serious approach,” said Mizuho Financial Group President Tatsufumi Sakai of its planned J-Coin digital currency scheme during a recent interview.

He also expressed his intention to make use of a large amount of data obtained through the new payment service for its future businesses.

Mizuho has currently stepped up cross-industrial alliances such as with information technology companies, bearing in mind the trend of digitization and technological innovation. For example, it has decided to jointly establish a bank with LINE.

“We’ll do business with other companies if we have the opportunity. Timing and speed is very important,” Sakai said.

“There is a limit to how much we as a financial institution can develop just through our conventional businesses. We’re focusing on new technology.”

China aims to maintain stable industrial growth in 2019 by cultivating a more robust domestic market and further leveling the playing field for foreign and private enterprises, the nation’s top industry regulator said on Friday.

The plan came as the nation’s industrial output, an economic indicator measuring industrial activity, is forecast to expand by 6.3 percent in 2018, meeting the target of around 6 percent growth for this year.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said it will step up the push to boost information product consumption and nurture high-tech industries such as wearables, drones and service robots in 2019.

“We will guide local governments to build a number of model cities in spurring consumption and roll out policies to promote the development of high-definition video and internet of vehicles,” said Miao Wei, minister of industry and information technology, at the ministry’s annual work conference, which concluded on Friday.

According to Miao, the ministry will also implement policies to expand market access for the shipbuilding, automobile and aircraft sectors, and further multilateral cooperation in equipment manufacturing and information infrastructure construction.

His comments came after China managed to keep industrial growth on track this year, despite trade conflicts among major economies that have had a negative impact on China’s domestic economy.

In 2018, China’s manufacturing investment growth rebounded significantly, with dozens of intelligent manufacturing pilot projects established and the software and information technology service sector forecast to record 15 percent year-on-year growth.

Wang Peng, deputy director of the China Center for Information Industry Development, said that although retail sales growth in consumer electronics slowed in 2018, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s efforts to bring a more robust domestic market will help buoy consumption in information products.

“Also, the maturity of fifth-generation mobile communication technology next year will also spur consumers to buy more cutting-edge devices,” Wang said.

The ministry said on Friday that research and development of commercial 5G products will be accelerated in 2019, in order to lay down a better telecommunications infrastructure for industrial upgrading.

It also aims to make a fresh push to marshal the country’s high-end manufacturing power by strengthening the in-depth integration of cutting-edge technologies into traditional sectors.

Qu Xianming, with the National Manufacturing Strategy Advisory Committee, said the goal to move up the industrial value chain is gaining steam across the country, which can play an effective role in buoying the country’s industrial economy.

From January to November, the output of China’s high-tech manufacturing industry expanded by 11.8 percent year-on-year, outdoing overall industrial output growth, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics.

Bai Ming, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, said China is welcoming foreign and private enterprises to enter more key sectors, which will inject new vitality into the country’s industries.

China removed foreign ownership caps on new energy vehicle ventures this year, and is set to scrap ownership caps on commercial car producers in 2020 and on passenger car producers starting in 2022.

Sales of new energy vehicles are forecast to exceed 1.18 million units in 2018, and the number is expected to surpass 2 million units by 2020, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

The innovation index, a figure that measures and evaluates the innovation capability of the zones, has risen from 100 points in 2010 to 233 points in 2017, according to a 2018 evaluation report. The report has been published annually since 2013 by the Institutes of Science and Development of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The problem of unbalanced development among high-tech zones has also greatly improved, the report added. High-tech zones from central and western parts of China saw strong growth in their overall innovation capabilities last year. This was in part thanks to major cities in those regions working closely with the zones to unleash their innovation potential.

The index is based on five main criteria for innovation: resources, start-up environment, company activity and performance, international cooperation and the effects on development.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of China’s high-tech development zones, which added 12 new zones this year to reach a total of 169 as of October, said Wang Shengguang, director of the research center on China’s high-tech zones at the academy’s Institutes of Science and Development.

“After 30 years, the high-tech zones have successfully fulfilled their mission of pioneering China’s innovation systems, driving socioeconomic development, leading high-tech industries’ growth and radiating their positive influence to the nation and the world,” he said.

In 2017, the 156 national high-tech zones that provided data reported a total of 9.51 trillion yuan ($1.38 trillion) in goods and services, representing 11.5 percent of the national GDP last year, the report said. These zones also yielded a net profit of around 2.14 trillion yuan, and exported goods and services valued at $478 billion last year.

Some of the zones’ most profitable high-tech fields included electronics and telecommunications, biomedicine, mechatronics, new materials, new and efficient energy, environmental protection and space technologies. Mechatronics is the combination of mechanical engineering, computing and electronics.

The national high-tech zones are also heavyweights in research and development. Companies from those 156 zones spent more than 616 billion yuan in R&D last year, making up around 35 percent of the total R&D spending in China.

In 2017, there were 2,922 national research institutes, including 341 important “state-key laboratories”, that were either located in or worked with the national high-tech zones. This meant two-thirds of the nation’s state-level research institutes were linked to high-tech zones.

But in comparison to Silicon Valley, the world’s leading innovation ecosystem, China’s high-tech zones are still behind in terms of attracting quality foreign talent and venture capital investments, Wang said.

In 2016, over 37.8 percent of the population of the Silicon Valley area was foreign born, with many working in computer science, engineering, medicine and other high-tech sectors, the report said. Only around 1 percent of personnel working in China’s high-tech zones were foreigners.

As for venture capital, Silicon Valley received $14 billion worth of investment last year. The national high-tech zones received 37.4 billion yuan last year, which was just around 39 percent of the amount Silicon Valley had.

“We still need more effort to transform high-tech zones into a fertile ground for attracting and nurturing quality talent,” Wang said. “At the same time, we need to create innovative mechanisms to facilitate the commercialization of knowledge and scientific output.”

Samsung Electronics, the world’s No. 1 memory chip provider, is considering slowing the pace of expanding its production facilities next year amid negative forecasts about growth of the global semiconductor market.

At a biannual meeting on the tech titan’s global business strategies held last week, the device solutions division’s main agenda was how to cope with the expected oversupply of memory chips next year, as demand is widely forecast to go downhill, with the market facing a stall in the “super cycle” driven by an emerging data economy.

“Adjusting the pace of increasing production capacities for DRAM and NAND flash chips was discussed at the meeting presided over by Vice Chairman Kim Ki-nam and heads of the chipmaker’s overseas branches,” an industry source said.

According to news reports, Samsung is planning to curtail its production of memory chips next year to bit growth of less than 20 percent for DRAM and 30 percent for NAND.

Samsung said during a conference call on its third-quarter earnings in November that its annual bit growth for DRAM is estimated to be around 20 percent and 40 percent for NAND.

Bit growth refers to the increased supply of memory chips in bit volume that helps estimate capacities of each chip provider.

With the lowered bit growth estimates, Samsung is expected to conservatively execute its investment plans for memory production, industry watchers say.

Its 30 trillion-won investment plan for construction of a second fabrication line for DRAM at its newest Pyeongtaek campus in Gyeonggi Province could be carried out more carefully than initially planned, as part of Samsung’s strategy to prevent falls in DRAM prices by limiting new growth in supply.

The second Pyeongtaek plant is scheduled to be completed by the end of the first half of next year.

Samsung is also expected to limit increasing its DRAM production on the second floor of the first fabrication line in Pyeongtaek, amid the oversupply outlook.

“Samsung was going to add 40,000 wafers to the Pyeongtaek DRAM line, but it is considering 20,000 to 30,000 for the first six months of 2019,” an industry official said.

The Korean chipmaker’s slashed forecasts for fourth-quarter earnings add woes to the negative outlook for 2019.

Local stock brokerages estimate Samsung’s fourth-quarter operating profit to slide to around 13 trillion won from the previous quarter’s record high of 17.57 trillion won, due to weak seasonality of the semiconductor industry at the end of the year.

US-based Micron Technology’s first-quarter earnings announcement for the fiscal year of 2019 that ended on Nov. 31 fueled worries about the upcoming downturn in the chip market.

The market’s third player, after Samsung and SK hynix, reported a 5 percent drop in its revenue quarter-on-quarter, and its CEO announced a cutback in production for the next year.

Market analysts project the memory chip industry to decline for the first six months of 2019 but expect a rebound in the latter half.

“Due to decreased demand for the period between the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019, memory prices — especially DRAM prices — are estimated to drop by around 15 percent,” said Lee Jae-yoon, an analyst at Yuanta Securities. “But since major chip suppliers are planning to cut back their spending, the oversupply situation is expected to improve in the second half of next year.”

E-commerce in 2019 is expected to flourish in Thailand as giant e-marketplace providers and huge social media platforms battle it out. Investors are expected to join the battlefield, laying their bids in front of payment and logistic players in e-commerce.

According to a study by Google and Temasek, 2018 was the year of e-commerce for Southeast Asia and Thailand could boast the fastest growth. The study, “e-Conomy SEA 2018: Southeast Asia’s Internet Economy Reaches an Inflection Point”, also found that e-commerce adoption had accelerated the most in Thailand, reaching nearly US$3 billion (Bt97 billion) this year after having tripled in two years – and the Kingdom was the second-largest e-commerce market in the region.

Thailand’s e-commerce is expected to grow at 30 per cent yearly from 2015 to 2025 to reach $13 billion (Bt421 billion). However, in 2018, Thailand’s e-commerce actually attained 49 per cent growth compared with 2015.

Experts confirm high and vigorous e-commerce growth for 2019. Giant

e-marketplace platforms including Lazada, Shopee, and JD will continue to heavily invest in taking marketshare, while giant social media platform including Facebook (and Instagram), Google, and Line will next year focus on e-commerce services.

Payment and logistics are the backbone of the sector’s growth. They will next year both see players taking a more aggressive stance to encourage e-commerce in this country. Thailand Post plans to launch a cash-on-delivery (COD) service to drive e-commerce next year, while Alibaba will operate a logistics hub in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC).

Thanawat Malabuppha, president of the Thai e-Commerce Association and chief executive officer of Priceza, predicts a more competitive market next year, with growth over 30 per cent above this year.

A dominant trend for the coming year will involve a shift from the current approach of social platforms to one that prominently includes e-commerce. All major platform players – including Google, Facebook, Instagram and Line – are about to aggressively enter the e-commerce battlefield. Google Shopping will be more active in Thailand, and Facebook Marketplace will be both more active and more aggressive. A lot more offline merchants will have an online presence on these platforms.

And many more people will be going online.

“Even bankers will be more aggressive on e-commerce, but the biggest impact to the market is the aggressive move of giant platform providers including Google, Facebook, and Line next year,” said Thanawat.

Even as search engines and social media platforms join the e-marketplace, the giant e-markets are crossing over into social media and searching. For example Lazada and Shopee started to host chat services to allow customers to chat with the merchant, with Lazada also allowing people to post to a news feed similar to that found on Facebook. In its most recent move, merchants can now to “live” on the Lazada app instead of on Facebook.

“Social media platforms like Facebook, Google, and Line have entered the e-commerce [ecosystem], while e-commerce platform like Shopee, Lazada, and JD have begun to offer several new social media services in order to be a part of users’ [lives]. These platforms both encourage and compete with each other,” said Thanawat.

Competition between Lazada, Shopee, and JD will be more intense next year. Within these e-marketplaces, merchants will also compete more. These e-marketplaces, offer at least 75 million items, with the varieties of products continuing to grow. Around 80 per cent of these products are made overseas, mostly in China. The presence of cross-border products will increase, and in the process destroy the competitive advantage of merchants who merely import products from China to sell online without adding any value.

The next trend is e-payment, Thanawat said, with cash on delivery (COD) accounting for the largest portion of e-commerce payment. COD can encourage people to dare to try out online shopping, and so can help recruit new online shoppers. On the other hand, COD is costly and inconvenient, as people need to wait to receive the product and make their payment.

“According to Bank of Thailand, the cot of handling a cash payment is around four to five times more expensive than for electronic payment. According to Amazon India, COD payment is three to five times more expensive than Amazon Pay,” said Thanawat.

All e-marketplace providers will try to drive people to their e-wallet to facilitate payment with electronic money. It is expected to see JD wallet next year. Lazada already has its wallet, Shopee has Alipay, and Line has Rabbit Line Pay. Next year, they will use subsidies to encourage people to shift to paying with e-wallet. The use of COD will decline, but for now remain the top choice for e-commerce payment in Thailand.

Omni-channel marketing will next year play a larger role in e-commerce. The omni-channel concept is to draw brands to every environment hosting large numbers of customers with the same seamless shopping experience As the platforms – Google, Line and Facebook – encourage e-commerce, many more brands will be drawn to the ecosystem, given the huge numbers of people hanging out there.

“Another driving factor is social media. E-commerce in Thailand is still growing at 30 per cent according to Google-Temasek. Social media is booming, Thais favour social media commerce. Thailand has the highest portion of social commerce than anywhere else in the world, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers,” said Thanawat.

The top three products categories for which people prefer to shop online are fashion, electronics and beauty.

Sustained expansion tipped

Pawoot Pongvitaya-panu, tarad.com founder and chief executive   and the former president of the  Thai e-Commerce Association, said  that

e-commerce in Thailand will continue to enjoy healthy growth next year. That’s because the big e-marketplace players will continue to invest heavily in e-commerce to capture marketshare, he explains, while the social media platforms continue to launch e-commerce services. “Next year, both the e-marketplace and social commerce will continue as the two main platforms for e-commerce in Thailand,” said Pawoot.

“Next year we will see more interesting e-commerce advertisements, especially from shopping searches like Google Shopping, which we have not seen a lot of this year in Thailand,” said Pawoot.

He added that Facebook will be more active in e-commerce, with both Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Group – as well as in logistics. Also, bankers will concentrate more on e-commerce as well, with more banks stepping into e-commerce. For example, Kasikornbank has launched KPlus Market.  “Line is another player that will make a big move into e-commerce next year .This year, Line acquired Sellsuki and is expected to do more,” said Pawoot.

Brands will focus more on e-commerce, getting involved in that market through both their own shopping websites and the e-marketplace.

Additionally, e-commerce in  2019 will continue its growth, due to the investment of payment and logistics players to facilitate people living in countryside to more easily shop for products online. Next year, a larger portion of e-commerce buyers will be spread out across the nation, with a sales split of about 44:56 between rural buyers and those in Bangkok.

However, because of aggressive moves in the big e-marketplace by Lazada, Shopee and JD, a lot more products from China are expected to flow through the Thai e-commerce market. The draft of the new Revenue Code will see tax investigations of people having above 3,000 online money transfers per year. The regulation could have an impact on e-commerce but is not expected to affect its growth.

People’s top three favourite product categories for online purchases are mobile and electronic products, fashion and beauty.

Artificial intelligence (AI) will play more role in e-commerce next year, and there will see a lot more use-cases.

“E-commerce will grow continuously and rapidly next year, building on the momentum from this year. All giant e-commerce players – Lazada, Shopee, and JD – heavily invested in e-commerce in Thailand this year and will next year,” said Pawoot. “One aggressive move is to leave commissions out. They also offer an open “mall” such as Lazada’s LazMall. Shopee opened ShopeeMall to compete withJD.com.”

Though these three giants hold most e-commerce in their hands, the other big slice of e-commerce – social commerce – is not yet dominated by a major player. Social commerce has become the long e-commerce tail in Thailand.

Paiboon Amonpinyokeat, of the National Cyber Security preparation committee and a cyber law expert, said that 2019 is expected to see active moves in cybersecurity, with the Cybersecurity Act expected to effect in 2019. This will encourage investments in cybersecurity and ventures by startups in Thailand.

“All cybersecurity bills are expected to be effective before the election, so it should be effective by February,” said Paiboon.

Cybersecurity in 2019 is expected to see much higher growth from 2018 since the new laws will encourage and compel organisations – both in the government and private sectors – to invest more in cybersecurity in order to ensure legal compliance.

The critical infrastructure will inject a lot more investment to make their system/infrastructure more secure and, by doing so, put them in legal compliance. Moreover, there will be more cybersecurity manpower and resource developments. According to the National Cyber Security Preparation Committee, the country is expected to have at least 5,000 cybersecurity workers in the next three to five years.

Under the Cybersecurity Act, apart from law enforcement, the provisions are part of efforts to encourage the critical infrastructure providers to invest and to devote more attention to cybersecurity. Another key act, the Digital ID Act, will also help leverage investment in cybersecurity in the country.

However, close monitoring is required on which draft of the Cybersecurity Act is picked by the commission to put for the NLA’s consideration, between the revised draft that the Cabinet has endorsed or the first draft that the Council of State has endorsed.

Two months were spent on the revised draft to make the adjustments of the earlier draft as a result of the participation of experts across the legal, technology and business domains.

It consists of three parts – business promotion, protection, and is not focused on “content”. The former draft is focused on content.

Prinya Hom-anek, the secretary of the Thailand Information Security Association (Tisa) and a cybersecurity expert, said that in 2019 all four digital Acts will officially take effect. The first two concern the leveraging of the Electronic Transactions Development Agency (Public Organisation) to become a national agency that operates and runs under its own Act; and the Electronic Transactions Act (2019).

As a result, electronic transactions will be tightened and have more costs to ensure regulatory compliance. This is to create more confidence in electronic transactions and will dramatically increase the number of electronic transactions in 2019.

The other two digital acts – the Cybersecurity Act and Personal Data Protection Act – are also expected to effect in early 2019. All four Acts are scheduled to be passed on to the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) for consideration and are expected to take effect next year.

Prinya has also highlighted the 10 cybersecurity trends for Thailand in 2019.

The first concerns data privacy and the risk of more leaks from cloud networks.

After the European Union’s (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect, Google, Apple and Facebook have allowed their users to download their own data.

The move comes against the backdrop of concerns that if people lose their passwords, other people would be able to download all their personal data. This leads to the prospect of an increase in repetitional risk, especially for people who set passwords that are too easy, without two-factor authentication. Those users without strong passwords have a higher chance that their personal data will be leaked.

Also, people who are careless with their passwords have a greater risk of losing their personal data.

Therefore, the first trend of cybersecurity is to have two-factor authentication. At this level of security, users need a six-digit authentication code each time. Two-factor authentication will be the default next year and indeed will become mandatory.

The second trend is for regulations to be tightened.

The drafts of the Personal Data Protection Act and Cybersecurity Act are expected to be effective next year. They have already passed the Cabinet’s scrutiny and awaiting the consideration of NLA.

The critical infrastructure will be more concentrated on cybersecurity and they will invest a lot more in leveraging their cybersecurity standards. Meanwhile, privacy policies and disclaimers will become more stringent next year.

“Individuals must carefully and thoroughly read the privacy policies of service providers,” said Prinya.

The third trend is de-anonymisation, which is a reverse data mining technique that re-identifies encrypted information. Efforts here will be related to personally identifiable information (PII), which is the practice of collecting public and private personal data that can be used to identify an individual for legal and illegal applications.

The fourth trend is the full implementation of cyber resilience. It needs to have full life-cycle-incident management. It is not about asking “Are we secure?”, because there is no 100 per cent secure guarantee. The question should be: “Are we ready?” And once there is a hacking, how prepared will an organisation be in terms of incident response?

“All individuals need to help protect themselves and not leave cybersecurity matters to the online service providers only. Individual (mobile) Internet users need to change their mindset about security. They have to prepare how fast they respond rapidly; they should prepare for the worst scenario,” said Prinya.

The fifth trend is enterprises’ cybersecurity discipline. Enterprises need to have more cybersecurity discipline. Cybersecurity is just not about technology issues, but it is about people and process issues. The trend is people will focus a lot more on people and process, not only technologies.

“Cybersecurity is not only a technical issue, it is about process and people and top management leadership,” said Prinya.

The sixth trend is Internet of Things (IoT) security.

A lot more devices connected to the Internet are raising more concerns about cybersecurity. Most of connected devices have default passwords, especially the medical devices and industrial devices. Therefore, a trend for hackers is to attack IoT and OT (operational technology) in the critical infrastructure.

“Thus, it is consistent with the second trend that the regulations will see more tightening, especially on the critical infrastructure that are targets of an attack,” said Prinya.

The seventh trend is about artificial intelligence used for the dark side of the Internet.

Hackers also use AI in hacking. Rather than coding, hackers use AI and machine learning to detect a system’s weakness and to attack the victim.

Viruses will be empowered by AI and machine learning as well as learning the patterns in order to avoid the anti-virus detection.

The eighth trend is for more social media scandals.

Social media scandals will also include those concerning fake news and cyber bullying. Since social media is a circle of influence, it can be used to manipulate the masses.

It is about the attention economy. Social media scandals are related to the attention economy. People normally have only eight seconds of attention. Cybersecurity is not just only about hackers and viruses.

“The most dangerous hacker is yourself when using social media and online services carelessly,” said Prinya.

The ninth trend is for cybersecurity transformation.

The next year trend is about a shift from digital transformation to cybersecurity transformation. If cybersecurity and privacy are not good, trust will not be sustained.

Therefore digital transformation would not be a success. So, cybersecurity transformation (including privacy) is the foundation for digital transformation.

The 10th trend concerns the area from the data economy to the crypto-economic field.

Now, the country is moving towards the data economy, which is not crypto-economic. Crypto and blockchain are the future, but not at the moment.

It is to move from the data economy to the crypto-economic realm in the next couple of years We are not yet seeing real-world mass implementation. It is the future technology and its arrival will take time.

“It is a subject matter for expert groups and for internal study,” said Prinya.