Euromonitor insight
Thailand
Thailand is ASEAN’s second largest market in terms of total consumer expenditure.
On the back of very low unemployment and rising wages, income inequality in Thailand has been falling, although the gap between the rich and the poor remains large.
Between 2009 and 2014, despite repeated episodes of political turmoil, the Thai consumer market expanded by 23.7% in real terms, equivalent to an average annual real growth of 4.3%.
Euromonitor's analysts say that companies planning on entering Thailand may want to consider a regional strategy, with one-in-three dollars in the country spent in Bangkok and households in the capital spending twice as much on average as those in the north and north-east.