KPN eyes market for Chinese language
KPN Group is set to focus on Chineselanguage education and training business to serve the growing influence of China’s economy on Thailand.
The plan is to open more Chinese-language centres and push for online courses and more on-site training activities.
The group operates five different business units: property, energy, entertainment, investment and education.
Boonyapat Suvanamas, managing director of KPN Chinese Academy Co, said China not only contributes one-third of foreign tourist arrivals and tourism revenue to Thailand, but it also plays an important role as a key business partner in the Thai economy.
“Chinese people are expanding their businesses into Thailand, other Southeast Asian countries and beyond,” he said. “This means huge opportunities to do business with them, and there is high demand from Thais to learn Chinese language and culture.”
The need to understand Chinese language and culture extends to the US, which grants residency to foreigners who invest at least US$500,000 in the country to create jobs.
This measure has led to many elementary and high schools on the West Coast of the US such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and San Diego putting in comprehensive Chinese language classes in their curriculum.
In Thailand there are four major Chinese-language centres in the market: Oriental Knowledge and Language School (OKLS), ECC, Mulan Language School and Ma-ed. They have 69 branches combined, and there are many individual instructors.
Mr Boonyapat said KPN Chinese Academy operates four branches in Bangkok at Siam Paragon, Central Pinklao, Central Rama 2 and Central Bangna.
It plans to open two more branches this year under a franchise basis. One will be in Bangkok and another in Nakhon Ratchasima province. A franchisee is required to pay about 3 million baht to open a language centre.
KPN also aims to open two more franchised branches in the North and the Northeast over the next two years. Apart from the outlet expansion, KPN Chinese Academy launched online courses in the fourth quarter last year. It expects to offer up to 100 courses within this year along with onsite training.
“We’re confident Chinese language, especially Mandarin, will become more important in Thailand following continued investment from Chinese businesspeople,” he said. “People working in the tourism and service sectors as well as traders should have Chinese language training.”
KPN recorded 16 million baht from its education business last year, about 20% of the group’s total revenue. This year it expects to generate 20 million from this segment excluding on-site training.
Revenue from education is expected to double to 40 million baht by 2020. As of last year, the company had 6,000 registered students and served over 50,000 learners across the country.
“We want to become a top three Chinese language centre in terms of student numbers by 2020,” Mr Boonyapat said. “We plan to offer English and Japanese language in the future to cope with rising demand.”