Unlocking digital potential: Foreign software companies ‘Thai’ the knot with Thailand’s growing tech scene

Thailand is witnessing an increase in foreign software companies setting up offices in the nation, tapping into its digital growth and the demands of local enterprises. This development has attracted big data centres and cloud service providers from various countries, including the US, Japan, and China.

Among the firms choosing Thailand is Adobe Inc., an American creator of design tools and document management software. The company opened its Thai office earlier this year, to benefit from the country’s booming digital and creative economy. For Adobe, Thailand is the second-largest market by revenue in Southeast Asia, according to Simon Dale, Vice-President and Managing Director of Southeast Asia and Korea.

Other international firms investing in Thailand include Salesforce, Appnext, Zoho Corp, and Dassault Systèmes. Furthermore, Vietnamese companies have been launching businesses in Thailand to offer software development outsourcing services.

Opening local offices allows international companies to align their business operations with Thailand’s Digital Platform Act and Personal Data Protection law. The demand for digital infrastructure resiliency has further driven the need for third-party data centres and cloud service providers to advance organisations’ operational efficiency and agility, reported Bangkok Post.

IDC predicts that Thailand’s data centre service market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.5% between 2018 and 2030, while server co-location at third-party data centres is expected to post a CAGR of 8.3%. Thailand’s appeal to multinational firms is boosted by its strategic Southeast Asian location, robust infrastructure, government support, and high digital consumer rates.

Thailand’s growing reliance on digital technologies such as cloud computing, big data analytics, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence has driven demand for software tools that amplify business agility and bolster operations. IDC’s software report forecasts that software vendor revenue in Thailand will exhibit a CAGR of 10.9% between 2022 and 2027.