Grant Watts, general manager of Microsoft's Online Services Group, said despite a lack of information about online use in Thailand, the company believes the Internet is about to boom, because its has found Thai users to be the ninth most "engaged users" in the world.

"Last month, we archived 430 million page views. That means 60-70 page views per user a month," said Watts, adding that besides Thailand, other countries in the top 10 for user engagement with the MSN network, measured by page views per user, include Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Brazil and Australia.

MSN pages that Thai users view include the msn.co.th portal website, which has grown from zero only two-and-a-half years ago to 6.4 million unique user numbers a month now, and the company's Hotmail and MSN Space weblog, for which the number of users has risen to 2 million within the past year and a half, the sharpest rise in Southeast Asia, he said.

Watts said Microsoft was working with ACNeilsen to research the Thai online market, in order to help it map out directions and strategies to lift its online business in Thailand.

He said the Internet was already almost on a par with television in terms of consumption per minute but that online advertising dollars had yet to catch up. Nonetheless, Microsoft expects global spending for online advertising compared with that for total advertising to grow from 3 per cent last year, or US$17 billion (Bt622 billion), to 7 per cent in 2008, or $35 billion.

"In Thailand, online-advertising spending is less than 1 per cent, so there is a huge opportunity," he said.

Microsoft claims its products, which include Windows Live Messenger, Hotmail and Win-dows Live Spaces, reach 71 per cent of the online population in Thailand, which totals 8.4 million people. On the other hand, 13 per cent of the population in Thailand is now online.

"For example, each month 2.5 million Thai people each send an average of 30 messages a day on Messenger, for a total of 70 million messages a day. That's a total of 2.2 billion messages a month - more than seven times Thailand's SMS traffic," said Watts.

He said the Online Services Group recorded a 76-per-cent growth in revenues last year in Thailand and expected similar growth this year, as well.

"Last year, average advertising spending by our customers increased by more than 100 per cent," said Watts.

Speaking at the same press conference, Bangkok Bank senior vice president Suwanna Usanachitt said her bank was satisfied with the MSN Money channel programme it introduced with Microsoft more than two years ago.

"We have used it as the main media channel for some products, such as our i-banking campaign," she said.

About 5-8 per cent of Bangkok Bank's total advertising budget is now spent online.

Worldwide, MSN attracts more than 465 million unique users a month. The reason for Microsoft turning its focus to online advertising is the huge size of the global advertising market, which totals $520 billion, versus $131 billion for the software market. At present, Microsoft has about a 30-per-cent share of the software market and 3.5 per cent of the online-advertising market.

Pichaya Changsorn

The Nation