Mobile Wallets Spotlight: Thailand

Over the past 2 years, Southeast Asia added more than 70 million online shoppers. Thailand is one of the fastest growing countries for mobile payments in the region. We estimate the mobile payment transaction volume to grow by 30% in each of the next 4 years.

Mobile wallets in Thailand: bird’s eye view

Here’s what you need to know about mobile wallets in Thailand:

• Mobile wallet users: 15M in 2020, forecast to grow to 45M by 2025
• Mobile wallet ownership: 21% of the population, 63% by 2025
• Mobile wallet transaction volume: 492M transactions, 3.7B transactions by 2025
• Mobile wallet transaction value: $10.6B, $36.7B by 2025

Thailand is one of the more affluent developing markets in Southeast Asia and is in the beginning stages of mobile payment mass adoption. Over the next five years, mobile wallet usage is expected to more than triple in terms of users and transaction value, and transaction volume expected to increase by more than 7X.

There are several mobile wallets available to consumers in Thailand, with TrueMoney being the largest, followed by RabbitLINE Pay, AirPay, mPay, GrabPay and others.

In parallel with mobile wallets, the real-time payment scheme PromptPay is gaining significant traction. PromptPay is used both as a standalone payment option as well as an instantaneous top-up method for mobile wallets.

Thailand has a very competitive payments landscape

TrueMoney’s dominance in Thailand can easily be attributed to its head start in the Thai market, founded in 2003. Originally a telco-centric mobile money wallet, TrueMoney has adapted to greater smartphone penetration with a more robust mobile app.

RabbitLINE Pay has leveraged both the popularity of the LINE messaging app as well as the partnership with the Rabbit transit card, which is especially popular in Bangkok. GrabPay has struggled to gain traction as Grab has entered and exited the Thai market several times, but its functionality as a regional super app as well as significant venture capital investment make it a formidable option.

While we project TrueMoney to maintain market share, there will be significant competition for the 30M projected new mobile wallet users in the next five years:

Thailand is a very attractive market for merchants to consider mobile payment acceptance, with significant growth projected over the next five years. PromptPay promises to be a force in payments, both as a direct payments option as well as a top-up method that will increase the convenience and usage of mobile wallets.

How to get started with mobile wallet payments in Thailand? Conclusions

For merchants looking to grow their revenue in Thailand, connecting to mobile wallets and real-time payments to reach these consumers is crucial. If you are looking to launch mobile wallets in Thailand and other Asian countries through one turnkey integration, get in touch.

For more data on mobile wallet payments in Thailand and 20+ other countries, download our Mobile Wallets Report 2021.