Coca Holding International has taken a U-turn in its marketing strategy and will now seek to regain lost business opportunities by opening restaurants in shopping centres.

"We accept that we pursued the wrong business direction for 23 years when we declined to open our sukiyaki brand of restaurants in department stores, even though they offered space for us," Pitaya Phanphensophon, chief executive officer of Coca Holding International, said yesterday.

Despite pioneering sukiyaki-style restaurants in Thailand, Coca lost out to MK restaurants, which operate in shopping centres and have become the market leader.

The company, which celebrates its 50th anniversary next year, operates 30 of its flagship restaurants, but only seven are in Thailand. The remainder are in Singapore, Japan, Burma, South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Laos.

The MK brand operates 200 restaurants nationwide.

Pitaya said the company faced stiff competition in department stores and shopping centres from rivals who have already set up shop.

"Our competitor's brand is more popular than our brand, and as a result almost all department stores will select our competitor's brand," said Pitaya.

MK currently controls 80 per cent of the Bt2-billion sukiyaki restaurant market.

To sidestep this highly competitive environment, the company is opening a new Chinese restaurant called China White at CentralWorld shopping complex in Bangkok. It will be the company's first restaurant in a department store.

Coco also plans to open outlets of its Mango Tree and Botantei franchises, which serve Thai and Japanese cuisine respectively, in department stores next year.

In another move that will diversify its business, the company plans to launch a Mango Tree range of ready-to-eat frozen foods next year. It expects annual sales from its frozen-food products to reach Bt400 million by 2009.

Coca Holding International reported sales of Bt900 million last year, 40 per cent of which came from its Thai businesses. It expects Bt1 billion in sales this year.

Coca operates six restaurant brands. Along with its 30 Coca Restaurants, six Mango Tree outlets, the Botantei restaurant and the yet-to-be-opened China White restaurant, it operates another Japanese restaurant - Nikai -and a bakery called Kroissant House.

Pitaya said that although the company had missed the opportunity to expand its sukiyaki restaurants in Thailand, it had succeeded in expanding overseas.

Along with opening China White, Botantei and two new Mango Tree outlets in Thailand next year, Coca also plans to open the first of its trademark sukiyaki restaurants in Cambodia and Vietnam next year. With the new business direction, Pitaya said the company expected revenue growth to average 10 per cent a year.

Somluck Srimalee

The Nation