Google employs Thai to head local expansion
Pornthip Kongchun, Google’s first Thai represenative, is in charge of the company’s expansion here, including its planned new Thai-language advertising service.
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Google boasts its first Thai national, as the firm plans to launch a Thai-language advertising service around the middle of the year.
As part of its localisation policy, Google three months ago employed Pornthip Kongchun, 29, to spearhead its expansion here. Pornthip was previously working at Microsoft (Thailand). She graduated in finance and banking from Ramkhamhaeng University and spent two years with the Tourism Authority of Thailand before joining travel company Passion Asia. The September 11 terrorist attacks in the US in 2001 reduced visitors to Thailand and forced Passion Asia to sell its online reservation software, which she had helped develop during her two-to-three year tenure at the company. The shift enabled Pornthip to meet people in the technology industry and she then moved to Microsoft's business solutions team for two years. She said it had been a tough decision to leave such a good company. "I like Google's business model and its innovative nature. It's also very challenging because I've become the first executive so I have to start everything. There's no programme for me to follow, the company has allowed me to create plans myself." According to www.truehit.net, Google had about 93 per cent of the Thai market, significantly above the world average. Google has great potential in the country, Pornthip said. "Thais are very enthusiastic about a number of Google services, compared with customers in [say] Latin American countries. [For example] pocket books about Google Earth are selling very well here," she said. Google already has more than 1,000 Thai customers for its English-language AdSense service, which places adverts that are relevant to a search topic in the margins, despite not having run any marketing campaigns or offering a dedicated Thai-language AdSense service. The search engine is considering offering its Thai AdSense advertising service in the next few months in the hope of tapping the huge, non-English reading Thai market, she said. Within Southeast Asia, Google so far has representatives only in Thailand and Vietnam. Chonchalerm Padtha, of search engine marketing firm Globet.com, said Google was the world's most popular search engine with a 46.3-per-cent market share last year. Pichaya Changsorn The Nation
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