Bangkok--8 Nov--Digital Economy Promotion Agency
The Thailand digital content industry was valued at 21.9 billion Baht in 2016 and is expected to grow by 9% to reach 24 billion Baht this year, according to the recent study conducted by the Digital Economy Promotion Agency (DEPA) – a key arm of the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DE) to leverage digital technologies to transform the economy and society.
The digital content industry consists of 3 sub-industries which are gaming, animation, and character. In 2016, the gaming sub-industry rapidly expanded 14.8% over 2015 and contributed 16.3 billion Baht to the total digital content industry value while the animation sub-industry, despite the slight decline of 1.6%, contributed another 3.9 billion and the character sub-industry made up the remaining 1.7 billion Baht.
"This year's study is the first time DEPA separates the character sub-industry from the animation sub-industry. We have also significantly increased the study's sample size, with stronger emphasis on 'key players' in the industry to ensure accurate results, which in turns will eventually assist DEPA in achieving the objective of supporting and promoting the digital content industry in Thailand," says DEPA's president Dr. Nuttapon Nimmanphatcharin. "We would like to express gratitude to Digital Content Association of Thai (DCAT), Thai Animation & Computer Graphics Association (TACGA), Thai Game Software Industry Association (TGA), and Bangkok ACM SIGGRAPH for the immense support we received throughout the project."
The study's key findings reveal that both animation and gaming markets are on the course of gaining popularity in Thailand, as a result of blockbuster animations and games imported and created by Thai developers throughout 2016. The traction of character-related sales is also on the rise despite the lack of new megahit characters as most of the widely popular characters are ones created years ago.
With positive factors surrounding the industry, including the continuous increase of both demand and supply, the strong momentum is expected to continue, with the value forecasted to be 24 billion Baht and 26 billion Baht in 2017 and 2018 respectively. The animation sub-industry has a tendency to recover in 2017 (1.8% growth) before achieving a double-digit expansion of 10% once again in 2018. The expansion of the character sub-industry is anticipated to be at 9.6% in 2017 and 8.1% in 2018. The highest growth is likely to be witnessed in the gaming sub-industry, posting 12% growth both in 2017 and 2018.
"The digital content industry in Thailand is still primarily driven by imported content rather than locally developed one. Imported animations contributed half to the total animation market in 2016 while imported characters accounted for 93% of the character market, which is similar to the situation in the gaming market where imports made up 96%," Dr. Nuttapon adds.
The exports of locally created digital content totaled 1.2 billion Baht in 2016, representing the increment of 6.2%. China, Japan, EU, and the United States have increasingly outsourced animation productions to Thai animators which propelled the animation export value to 787.1 million Baht, the growth of 7.6% over 2015. Character exports grew marginally from 12.1 million Baht in 2015 to 13.7 million Baht in 2016 while the exports of games expanded from just 419.7 million Baht in 2015 to reach 434.4 million Baht in 2016.
"While Thai animators, character creators, and game developers are now globally recognized for their skills and competency, we still rely on foreign markets both in terms of imports and revenue from outsourcing. Moving up the value chain by creating our own intellectual properties will mitigate the issues caused by low outsourcing fees and ensure that money spent on digital content is circulated in the country. This will eventually pave ways for further growth of the industry in years to come. DEPA is fully committed to support the sustainable development of the digital content industry so that Thai animators, creators, and game developers can compete on a global scale. DEPA's roadmap includes establishing an Internalization Fund to provide financial support to market players looking to expand into the overseas market, launching Digital Startup Program to foster new market players, and creating Co-Creation Space to facilitate cooperation and exchange of ideas among market players. By working together, we can realize our mutual goal of making Thailand a force to be reckoned with in the global digital content industry," concludes Dr. Nuttapon.