Synnex unit, partner team up to launch SWOPMART
Synnex Thailand, a leading IT distributor, has collaborated with a venture capital (VC) fund jointly established by Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) and Charoen Pokphand Group (CPG) to set up a startup to tap into the 50-billion-baht secondhand IT product market.
Sutida Mongkolsuthree, chief executive of Synnex, said the startup, called SWOPMART, has received 60% of its funding via the company’s investment arm — Synnex Incubation — and the remainder from a strategic partner.
However, an industry source indicated that the strategic partner is the VC fund jointly established by SCB and CPG with an investment of US$800 million (27 billion baht). SCB invests in the fund through its subsidiary — SCB 10X — a company under its financial group.
The secondhand IT product exchange platform — www.swopmart.co.th — has been soft launched.
Remote work and online learning have triggered demand for IT devices amid a supply shortage and people’s limited purchasing power due to the pandemic.
“This is an e-marketplace where sellers meet buyers with trust as Synnex uses our expertise to check product quality and offers after-sales services and insurance services,” said Ms Sutida.
According to her, the IT secondhand market is worth 50 billion baht and has no dominant players.
“This is an untapped market and sales are mostly done through social commerce, such as Facebook and Kaidee. com,” she said.
The new startup needs no more than 100 million baht in investment and it will focus on consumer-to-consumer (C2C) services, Ms Sutida said. Its revenue will come from a 5% fee from the sales of products uncertified by Synnex and a 7% fee from products certified by the firm
The startup is expected to gain 50% market share within three years when its earnings are expected to reach 1.2 billion baht with a profit of 250 million baht.
“This is just the beginning and we will expand to other products on this platform,” Ms Sutida said.
Synnex will go beyond “IT distributor” to build an IT ecosystem to support growth and leverage its existing business, she said. It will speed up acquisition of the new technology segment, mainly in Internet of Things (IoT) and security.
According to Ms Sutida, Synnex
Incubation aims to become a corporate venture builder that will reach out to strategic partnerships and respond quickly to the market’s needs.
Its investment centres on high potential startups mainly in gaming, health, security and IoT spheres with an investment scope of up to 100 million baht per deal.
Overall, the IT market in Thailand continues to grow this year despite economic woes, driven by demand among those working and studying online and supply shortages, she noted.
“We will focus on margin rather than sales growth,” Ms Sutida said.
The company still has various backlog projects in the second half while 5G, WiFi 6 and cloud service are also propelling demand for new and premium IT gadgets which also have good sales prices.