Singer broadens portfolio to vehicles
SET-listed Singer Thailand Plc, the country’s largest hire purchase company, is enlarging its product portfolio to include furniture, audiovisual and automotives to spur sales growth.
Chief marketing officer Kittipong Kanokvilairat said the company will team up with two local furniture makers and a Japanese audiovisual company to distribute products through Singer’s hire purchase network.
Singer will start selling audiovisual products by the end of this month and furniture from next month.
The company is in talks with partners in the automotive industry to distribute vehicles in the coming months.
In addition, Singer will resume expanding its home appliance segments this year after a slowdown of marketing activities over the past five years. Yesterday, the company relaunched sales of air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines to respond to high demand for these products this summer.
With the use of an offensive strategy, Singer is set to allocate about 100 million baht over the next 18 months to upgrade its IT system and open new sales branches across the country, with plans to raise the number of sales people to 20,000, up from 13,000 last year. The number of sales people is expected to double to 40,000 next year.
“Purchasing power is still sufficient for us. We were not impacted by the current economic situation because we sell necessary goods,” Mr Kittipong said. “Communities in each province are stronger due to government support.”
Non-performing loans at Singer remain at 13% of total outstanding loans, or 200,000 accounts. The company started changing its money collecting system after coming under the management of J Mart Group and expects its NPLs will decline to 7%.
About 90% of Singer’s customers are upcountry and the rest are in Bangkok.
Singer wants to expand its business in Bangkok this year through the growing number of new entrepreneurs. A full-scale Singer branch will open on Rama II Road this year.
The company expects revenue this year will grow by 30% from last year’s 2.54 billion baht, which fell from nearly 3.4 billion in 2015. Last year’s net profit was 119 million baht. Of the total revenue, about 30% each came from home appliances and commercial businesses, with the rest generated from other products, such as mobile phones and cameras.
“Our sales saw a contraction for two years due to economic and political problems but with our changes in many areas, sales will resume growth this year,” he said.
SINGER shares closed yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at 13.40 baht, down 30 satang, in trade worth 14.6 million baht.