“Thai’s Spending Behaviour during the 2016

Chinese New Year Festival”

Chinese New Year is celebrated by Chinese descendants from all over the world

including Thailand. When Chinese New Year is around the corner, a large amount of

money is being generated into the economy. This report aims provide information on

Thai citizen’s budget plans for this upcoming Chinese New Year.

[Research Summary]

o Up to 70.0% of Thai citizens consider Chinese New Year an important festival.

o Thai people have changed their behaviour for managing the budget for this upcoming Chinese New Year as less than 5000 THB.

o Top 3 categories people allocate most of their budgets to be “food for ceremonial and celebration activities”, “red packets”, and “worship paper” respectively.

o More than 50.0% of the people have decided to increase their Chinese New Year

budget due to inflation.

o “Extended family” (66.5%) is first chosen when asked about who our respondents

plan to spend Chinese New Year with.

o “Markets” (67.9%) is the preferred venue to buy Chinese New Year necessities.

o Consumer look for reasonable price (47.0%), product quality (38.0) and travel

convenience (20.4%) are the top three things when considering where to buy Chinese

New Year necessities.

W&S Group provides Digital Marketing Services in the Southeast Asia. With the offices cover

Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand. W&S Co., Ltd. (Thailand) under W&S Holdings Inc. (URL:

http://www.yimresearch.com, Head Office: Bangkok, Thailand, CEO: Mr. Yoshio Fujii)

conducted a survey, aimed 400 males and female over 17 years old in Thailand on “Thai’s

Spending Behaviour during the 2016 Chinese New Year Festival.”

[Research Design]

Research Method Online Research

Fieldwork Period 08 January, 2016 - 11 January, 2016

Research Area Thailand (Nationwide)

Respondent Criteria Thai citizens, ages 17 years old and above

Sample Size 800 Samples

[Respondents Profile]

Unit: %

7.09.1

12.616.1

22.6

17.4

7.64.4 3.1

Less than7,500THB

75001 -18,000

THB

18,001 -24,000

THB

24,001 -35,000

THB

35,001 -50,000

THB

50,001 -85,000

THB

85,001 -160,000

THB

Morethan

160,000THB

I do notknow/ Irefuse toanswer

MHI

Yes68%

No32%

ETHNICALLY CHINESE

Male50%

Female 50%

GENDER

[Details]

Q, Please tell us how important is Chinese New Year?

“Chinese New Year is considered important to 67.6% of our respondents.”

While the rest says that it is not important by 5.4%.

Q. Please tell us your family’s budget for the upcoming Chinese New Year.

“Almost 40.0% of our respondents say their family has set aside less than 5,000 Thai

Baht for this coming Chinese New Year.”

Followed by 5,001 – 10,000 THB (34.4%), and lastly is 10,001 – 20,000 THB accordingly.

35.6 32.0 27.0 3.5 1.9

Very Important Important Moderate Not important Not important at all

39.5

34.4

12.6

3.6 2.5 1.1

6.3

Less than5,000 THB

5,001 -10,000 THB

10,001 -20,000 THB

20,001 -30,000 THB

30,001 -50,000 THB

More than50,000 THB

Not sure/ Ihave no

information

T2B

67.6%

Unit: %

Q. Please tell us how your family members allocate their budget for this upcoming Chinese

New Year in five different categories – “food, worship paper, red packets, gifts and others”?

The top 3 categories our respondents allocate 50.0% of their budget to food (for

ceremonial and celebration purposes), 20.0% to red packets and 10.0 % to worship

paper.

17.3

17.6

33.9

20%

0%

10%

Worship Paper

11.6

14.9

22.5

30%

40%

50%

Food

16.4

18.4

27.6

0%

10%

20%

Red Packets

19.1

23.1

32.9

20%

0%

10%

Gifts

18.0

24.75

27.5

5%

10%

0%

Other

Unit: %

Q. Please tell us whether your family’s Chinese New Year budget change from last year?

“More than 50% of our respondents say that they plan to increase their Chinese New

Year budget this year.”

28.0% said they have decided to maintain their budget, while 20.0% said they will decrease

their budget for this upcoming festival.

When asked the factors influencing their decision to increase, decrease or maintain their

budget, up to 73.0% among the respondents who chose to increase their budget said

they based their decision on the increasing prices of consumer products or inflation,

followed by the increase of their salaries (6.4%), then the increase in cost of living, family

members, and their demands to increase the amount of ceremonial necessities (5.6%),

respectively.

Increase52.0%

No change 28.0%

Decrease20.0%

Reasons to Increase Spending

(based n = 395 respondents)

1. Increase in product price due to inflation (73.0%)

2. Raise in salary (6.4%)

3. Increase in Cost of Living (5.6%)

More children in the family (5.6%)

Plan to increase ceremonial necessities eg. Food (5.6%)

Increase52.0%

No change 28.0%

Decrease20.0%

Unit: %

42.3% of those the surveyed people who decided to maintain their budget said they

plan to celebrate Chinese New Year like last year, 21.7% said their decision is due to the

bad economy while 11.1% said they plan to save costs.

Among those who said they plan to decrease their budgets, 32.9% said that the

decision is based largely due to economic reasons, followed by their plans to save

unnecessary costs (13.4%) such as excessive ceremonial items (12.8%).

Increase52.0%

No change 28.0%

Decrease20.0%

Increase52.0%

No change 28.0%

Decrease20.0%

Reasons to Maintain Spending

(based on n= 206 respondents)

1. Decide to buy the same items as last year (42.3%)

2. Bad economy (21.7%)

3. Plan to save costs (11.1%)

Reasons to Decrease Spending

(based on n= 149 respondents)

1. Bad economy (32.9%)

2. Plan to save costs (13.4%)

3. Plan to decrease ceremonial necessities eg. Food (12.8%)

Q. Please tell us who do you plan celebrate Chinese New Year with?

“The majority of our respondents said they plan to spend Chinese New Year with their

families.”

65.5% said they will be spending Chinese New Year with their extended families and 37.9%

said they plan to celebrate Chinese New Year with their family, others said they will spend

the day with their friends, boyfriend/husband, and alone in descending order.

Q. Please tell us where do you usually buy necessities for Chinese New Year?

“The top three places our respondents choose to buy their necessities are first, the

market (67.9%), followed by the supermarket (50.1%) and hypermarket (45.8%) in

descending order.”

65.5

37.9

7.8 6.1 3.4

Extended Family(Grandparents,

Cousins and Siblings)

Family (Father,Mother, Child.)

Boyfriend/Husband Friends Others

67.9

50.145.8

34.3

10.3 8.5 7.0

0.4

Market Supermarket Hypermarket ConvenientStore

Restaurant Online Delivery Others

Unit: %

Unit: %

Q. Please tell us why you prefer to buy Chinese New Year necessities from those places

mentioned above?

According to our respondents, 47.0% first consider “reasonable price” as the top

priority when choosing shopping venue.

Other significant priorities include product quality (38.0%) and travel convenience

(30.4%).

47.0

25.1

12.15.5 4.3 2.6 1.0 0.8 0.5 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.0 0.0

Rank 1st

38.0

18.413.5

9.3 8.04.4 2.4 2.4 1.3 1.0 0.6 0.5 0.3

Rank 2nd

30.4

16.310.6 9 8.1 7 4.8 3.9 2.5 2.3 2.1 1.5 0.9 0.8

Rank 3rd

Unit: %

[About W&S Co., Ltd. (Thailand)]

W&S Co., Ltd. is a digital marketing provider in Southeast Asia under the parent company

W&S Holding, Inc. in Japan. Currently it has three offices cover three countries in Vietnam,

Indonesia, and Thailand, with the largest panelists in Southeast Asia; 370,000 members.

Our core businesses are

1) Market research business (both qualitative and quantitative research)

2) Digital marketing business

[For more information, please contact]

Pakawat Wangsanuwat (Business Development)

W&S Co., Ltd. Contact: 18th Floor, Two Pacific Place Building, 142 Sukhumvit Road, Klongtoey Subdistrict, Klongtoey District, Bangkok, Thailand 10110 Email: pakawat@yimresearch.com

Website: https://www.yimresearch.com