YouTube launches localized site for Thailand

YouTube’s launch of Youtube.co.th, a dedicated site for the market, gives brands more options for reaching the country’s video-obsessed young consumers.

The Thai-specific homepage, launched last week, helps discover and promote local content, and is therefore expected to help push local brands to a more prominent position on the site. Thai advertisers now have the option of setting up a local channel to host all their content, targeting specific video content using Trueview in-stream ads or buying the YouTube homepage masthead.

“Having a Thai-specific homepage means we can bring the 67 million citizens the most relevant videos to the Thai people- sounds like a pretty great way to celebrate everything we love about Thailand this Songkran” Pornthip Kongchuan, head of marketing, Google Thailand, wrote on the company’s official blog.

Video consumption in Thailand is growing at a fast clip. Thailand’s internet users spend twice as much time online as they do watching television.

According to a 2013 Comscore study, the online video audience in Southeast Asia grew around 8 per cent in the past year. YouTube continues to be the top video property in all markets. Music, movies and entertainment sites get more visitors and time spent than global averages. In Thailand, YouTube receives 7,289 million unique users- well above countries like Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines. Other popular video sits in Thailand are Mthai,com, Dailymotion, Vevo and the iTunes Software application.

The Comscore study also revealed that internet users in Vietnam and Thailand, driven in part by their younger populations, spend the greatest amount of time online: 47 per cent of Thailand’s population is under 35.

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Published with permission from Campaign Asia-Pacific

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