Chinese internet giants Tencent have announced that they will be building a data center in Thailand to provide cloud services to Chinese tourists in the region. This data center, which will commence its operation from the first half of 2018, is built to compete against the likes of Alibaba Cloud who are also looking to expand their cloud services in Thailand.
Tencent says that they are currently in the process of constructing the local data center in order to reduce latency and achieve compliance with the local regulators since some sectors require local data storage. They further added that they see opportunities growing in cloud services in Thailand because of the rising population of Chinese tourists in the region which is bound to touch 10 million this year. Laying emphasis on their plan to expand in Thailand, Krittee Manoleehagul, Managing Director of Tencent Thailand said:
Thailand, especially Bangkok and Phuket, is a top Chinese tourist destination.Chinese tourists prefer to buy snacks and cosmetics here. Brands can do marketing to attract potential buyers via the Tencent platform.
According to Tencent, brands based in Thailand can engage with Tencent’s customers on their chat platform WeChat before paying for any product or service via the WeChat Wallet.They further added that the contribution of Chinese tourists to the GDP of Thailand stands at 4% which roughly amounts to 650 billion baht.