Coming soon: Thailand Automotive 2022 – Industry Intelligence

Turning Insights about the Future into Functional Consequences Today

The Thai automotive industry, also known as the Detroit of Asia, is the nation’s success story, as it has been a main contributor towards Thai economic development being the country’s biggest export industry (Thai Automotive Institute, 2012 p. 2-25). 

In 2013, Thailand stressed its position as a big automotive player by becoming the 9th largest car manufacturer  globally with a total production of 2.45 million cars of which about 1 million were exported (The Economist, 2013). 

Car sales growth figures of annually 13% in the Asia pacific region while there is negative growth in North America and only 1% growth in Europe (Siam Commercial Bank, 2013) stress the importance of the South East Asian car market in which Thailand is currently the leader. 

So far mostly Japanese manufacturers have discovered Thailand as an ideal production base to mostly serve the growing ASEAN area consisting of about 600 million people. 

Nevertheless, it is incontestable that it is vital for every car manufacturer to be prepared for the future development of the Thai automotive industry since it offers a rare, yet appealing twofold opportunity- on one side as a potential sales market and on the other side as an attractive sourcing and production base to serve global demand. 

That’s exactly where the following report begins: The overall objective of this study is to provide an industry intelligence report on how the Thai automotive industry may look like in 2022 by conducting an online Delphi study with local industry experts followed by an in depth scenario analysis. Thereby, it is aimed to give new insights, which, if correctly interpreted and further developed can result in strategic advantages. 

The intention is to support senior executives and corporate strategy managers who are already involved in the industry or considering entering it, in their strategy development and decision making for the Thai automotive market. 

This study is divided into four major parts:

1. Research methodology: This part includes a theoretical background on Emerging Markets (including Thailand), Delphi study methodology, PEST framework and the scenario development framework
2. Projections: The projections and their essence are then introduced and explained
3. Results of the Delphi study: The quantitative and qualitative results of the Delphi study are presented in detail
4. Scenario Development: Development of sound scenarios for the Thai automotive industry in 2022. This part is a combination of the analysis of the dynamics of industry development and the qualitative and quantitative results of the Delphi study. Further, an estimated likelihood is assigned to each scenario along with the most important implications for industry stakeholders.