[PHNOM PENH POST]
CAMBODIAN telecoms must produce digital content to remain competitive in the country’s crowded sector, experts said yesterday.
However, others claimed the consumer market for that content was still too small.
A
lack of domestically produced TV programs, websites and other digital
offerings has Cambodia’s estimated 755,000 internet users searching
abroad, International Data Group ASEAN CEO Tam Le said yesterday during a
press conference.
The production of domestic content would boost
the already-fierce competition among the Kingdom’s nine active mobile
operators and 12 active internet service providers, he said.
“The
thing is that [domestic] content in Cambodia is very limited,” Tam Le
said, adding, “[Providing digital content] is a way for operators to
survive.”
Vietnam’s domestically generated content has increased
rapidly over the past seven years, especially with the government’s
support. The country now has more than 300 TV channels and 400 portal
websites, which are keeping internet users’ in the domestic space, Tam
Le said.
Although limited efforts exist to create content in the
Khmer language for domestic users, there is concern about the potential
profitability and competitiveness that these products would hold.
“[Telecoms]
will not win by producing their own content. They will win by producing
access to content,” Mike Gaertner, chief operating officer at CDIC
Information Technology, said yesterday of Cambodian attempts to
replicate social media sites such as Facebook.
“Facebook, Twitter and Youtube will dominate in social media. There’s just not a big enough local market.”
Market
potential lies in producing the easiest access to foreign products and
content such as Facebook and Youtube, Gaertner said.
Local news
content, however – the likes of which CDIC’s portal website Sabay
provides – should be in demand in the future if Cambodians learn to
search for information in Khmer, he added.
Preconceptions about
the quality of Cambodian digital content detracts from domestic demand,
said Steven Path, CEO at AngkorOne, a US-based company and web portal
that focuses on Khmer-language content for Cambodians around the world.
“The
perception is that foreign products are superior to Cambodian
products,” Path said yesterday. “If it says ‘made in Cambodia’ they
think it is inferior. And that’s the same with the internet. They need
to get over that stigma.”
Although not in the short-term future
of Cambodia’s digital space, digital content would inevitably be
produced in Cambodia, Path added.
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