Business News
Thailand business news, market trends, foreign investment, and economic updates—stay informed on stock market movements, entrepreneurship, and key developments shaping the economy. Get the latest from The Thaiger, your trusted source for business news in Thailand.
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Business Buzz: Just Google it
PHUKET: All business people tend to have a lot of questions each day about how to do this, what is the best way to do that, where can I find this and so on. More often than not, these questions go unanswered and so the problems remain unresolved and our business is no better off. But what if we could…
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Finance: Growth or value stocks, that is the question
PHUKET: Many investors do not understand the differences between growth stocks and value stocks, with the latter often being synonymous with Warren Buffett, the disciple of Benjamin Graham, who’s classic 1949 book The Intelligent Investor is considered the value stock investing bible. GROWTH STOCKS Growth stocks tend to be high-quality stocks of successful companies whose earnings are expected to continue…
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Phuket RevPAR takes hit with source market transition
PHUKET: Differences in source markets and government spending have forced Bali and Phuket to take dramatically different approaches to adjusting to the recent tourism climate with regards to balancing occupancy and rates. Hotels and resorts in Bali have taken a mostly unified approach by holding rates and allowing occupancy to dip. In Phuket, however, even within market segments, a number…
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Business Buzz: Learning from industry leaders
PHUKET: While recently I talked about focusing on your customer, not your competitor, it is also a very good idea to see what the leaders in your industry are doing and get creative ideas and inspiration from the best. If you are a small to medium enterprise, then there is a very high chance that you do not have a…
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Hyperlocal taxi situation to grab market
PHUKET: Myteksi, an on-demand taxi booking service in Malaysia, quickly diversified its branding and services offered by successfully expanding throughout Southeast Asia. MyTeksi remains the leading taxi-booking application in Malaysia, but is better known in Phuket, and much of the rest of the region, as GrabTaxi. The company continues to work hand-in-hand with local government offices, after garnering the support…
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Business Buzz: Earn extra income with affiliate marketing
PHUKET: Affiliate Marketing is where people earn commissions by marketing and promoting other people’s products. This has become very popular in the online world, as people who have the expertise at creating products often do not possess the desire or the marketing skills or, often, the budget required to market them properly. Depending on the platform or organization, the commission…
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Finance: Growth stocks to beat market
PHUKET: Growth stocks are always popular with Wall Street and retail investors alike because they are companies with sustainable positive cash flows along with revenues and earnings that are expected to grow at an above-average rate relative to the stock market. Here are a couple of individual growth stocks that could be a good fit for your portfolio: Gilead Sciences,…
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Banyan Tree, Angsana Laguna Phuket announces new director of marketing and communications
PHUKET: Nampetch ‘Nikki’ Tipaxsorn has taken up the position of director of marketing and communications for Banyan Tree and Angsana Laguna Phuket. In her new role, Ms Nampetch will manage all marketing and public relations activities, including marketing strategies to generate revenue and brand awareness for both properties. Ms Nampetch has more than 15 years of experience in both sales…
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Business Buzz: Target your customer, not your competitor
PHUKET: We see it all the time in marketing, company X trying to prove they are better than company Y, engaging in tit-for-tat marketing and social media battles trying to out-compete the competition. Now, while there is the theory that any publicity is still beneficial, I would argue it is far better to engage your potential customers directly and build…
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Finance: Neil Woodford, financial genius?
PHUKET: I know this has been written about in other media already, but as this fund and its manager have a great track record and I believe we are nearing a sale in stocks, it is a good discussion to review. For those of you who don’t know the fund or manager, Neil Woodford ran the Invesco Perpetual Income Fund…
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Bangkok Hospital Group aims to broaden medical tourism with new facility
PHUKET: One of the primary reasons the Bangkok Hospital Group purchased Phuket International Hospital for 3.61 billion baht last year was to bring the hospital’s exceptionally strong aesthetic surgery branch into the fold, explains Sanguan Kunaporn, the Director of the Phuket Plastic Surgery Institute at Phuket International Hospital. This month, the group will stage the soft opening of a new…
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Business Buzz: Quick tips to increase results
PHUKET: One of the biggest issues businesses have with online marketing is attracting eyeballs to their content. It doesn’t matter how good your website or social media content is if no one sees it. So the secret to getting much better results is to get your content seen. Here are five quick tips on how to increase your results with…
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CFA dips into feline health care sector
PHUKET: The team behind the Chaofa Andaman (CFA) Pet Hospital has stepped forward to corner the feline segment of the pet healthcare market by opening Thailand’s first-ever cat-specific hospital next to their existing business on Chaofa East Road in Chalong. Open since July 2010, CFA Pet Hospital grew increasingly aware that cats were more stressed than other animals while visiting…
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Business Buzz: Facebook goes beyond “likes’ to “Reactions’
PHUKET: After many people asking for it, and rumors abounding as to how it will work, it is finally here: Facebook has announced a trial in Ireland and Spain for a new series of emoji called ‘Reactions”. Users now have the choice to rate posts with ‘like’, ‘love’, ‘haha’, ‘yay’, ‘wow’, ‘sad’ or ‘angry’, quite similar to the emoji responses…
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Finance: Symmetrical triangle of gold
PHUKET: Gold is such a different asset class that it can really be very confusing thinking about it. As I write, gold is forming a classic technical trading pattern known as a symmetrical triangle, which makes it an interesting time to talk about it. These consolidation patterns usually result in a big move one way or the other, but let…
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Laguna Tri-Fest draws Chinese numbers
PHUKET: Rising Chinese numbers at the Challenge Laguna Phuket Tri-Fest bodes well for years ahead, as the classic Phuket event looks to generate more than 90 million baht this year. “In the past two years, we’ve seen more than 50 per cent growth [in the number] of athletes from China, both at the Laguna Phuket International Marathon in June and…
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Investment strategies for large sums of cash
PHUKET: Consider the following investing dilemma: You have recently received a large sum of money (from a pension payout, inheritance, the sale of property or a business) and you want to put this money to work for you. However, interest rates and returns on what are considered to be the safest investments (for example US and European bank deposits and…
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Sound advice on retiring rich and young
PHUKET: This last weekend I had the pleasure of attending a seminar from one of my business partners whom most Thai readers would be familiar with. They may not know, however, the extent of the business success that Paul Pattrapon has had outside of the limelight of being a Thai superstar. On top of singing, modeling, acting in soaps, hosting…
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Business Buzz: Success just clicks away
PHUKET: Following on from previous topics, if we know our sales funnel and can break it down into a process map, then we can analyze each step of the sales system, see where we have good and bad results, and increase our profitability by improving each area. Even a small tweak, improving only one or two per cent at each…
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Finance: Dodge a crash with right investment
PHUKET: For those of you who have been reading my columns for some time now, you probably know that I am not the biggest fan of the stock market at the moment. You may think I am an idiot because I have spent years waiting patiently for the next crash while the markets continue to march on to new highs.…
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Finance: Focus on China when investing
PHUKET: China’s stock market is imploding and that’s not only shaking confidence in the country, it’s also impacting global financial markets. However, investors need to keep in mind that over the past 15 years, the Chinese stock market has actually experienced both sharp rises and steep falls, with the last crash occurring in 2007. The market then largely moved sideways…
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Business Buzz: Don’t forget the database
PHUKET: Almost every business these days has at least some form of website and social media presence. What still amazes me, though, is how few are creating a database – which is actually their biggest asset. Simple Marketing 101 suggests you need potential customers to make a sale. And the easiest way to get potential customers is to create a…
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Finance: Continuing education
PHUKET: I have always been a big fan of education. It was instilled in me by my father from the time I was young and saw all of my friends leaving education early for the allure of a quick paycheck. Obviously, the short-sightedness of that only becomes apparent in hindsight, but I don’t think it is ever too late to…
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Charter rejection boosts economy
PHUKET: The rejection of the draft charter by the National Reform Council with a vote of 135-105 last week, along with measures to spur the economy worth a combined 136 billion baht, should overall have a positive affect on consumption, investment, and tourism, while also boosting internal economic activity, said Dr Anusorn Tamajai, dean of Rangsit University’s Faculty of Economics.…
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Business Buzz: Facebook hits billion in one day
PHUKET: If there was ever any doubt about the popularity and growing success of Facebook, on August 24 they answered their critics in the best possible way. It was the first time that a reported one billion users logged into their Facebook account on the same day. To put it into perspective, that was not a billion users in a…
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Finance: Yuan’s potential impact on stocks
PHUKET: China has fired a barrage in the ongoing global currency wars with its first devaluation in two decades in hopes of propping up its export-driven economy and reducing its politically dangerous loss of manufacturing jobs. Despite the dramatic headlines, what’s looking like a mere two per cent devaluation is unlikely to trigger a bear market in the global stock…
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Arrivals increase as room rates slide
PHUKET: While it’s encouraging that passenger arrivals at the island’s airport jumped by 11% during the first half (H1) of this year, compared to the same period last year, the flip side shows that hotels in all tiers tumbled with average room rates plunging from US$175 in H1 2014 to US$154, Bill Barnett, managing director of C9 Hotelworks said in…
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Charter rejection, stimulus package to boost economy
PHUKET: The rejection of the draft charter by the National Reform Council with a vote of 135-105 last Sunday, along with measures to spur the economy worth a combined 136 billion baht, should overall have a positive effect on consumption, investment, and tourism, while also boosting internal economic activity, says Dr Anusorn Tamajai, dean of Rangsit University’s Faculty of Economics.…
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Phuket’s infamous inflation linked to economic growth
PHUKET: Phuket inflation grew at a rate of 4.1 per cent in 2014, according to data released in C9 Hotelwork’s new Economic Overview of the island. What is clearly demonstrated in the numbers is how important tourism is as a driver of the economy. Using Gross Provincial Product (GPP) as the lead indicator, tourism directly accounts for 35.6 per cent…
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Finance: Cut to chase: advice or pitch
PHUKET: How do you know if the financial advice you are receiving is solid, or if it is a sales pitch in disguise? The first line of due diligence you should always employ is to check the educational background of the advisor. Ask where they did their financial studies and then verify with the institution that they do have the…
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