The company has been an importer of high-end Damixa faucets from Denmark and Sonia decorative bathroom items from Spain for 25 years. The two new brands are Novabath bathtubs and toilets and Isani bathroom equipment, both owed by Nova Trenda.

Managing director Rungtip Trongkamolthum yesterday said the company usually allocated 10 per cent of annual sales for marketing and advertising but that this year it would be 20 per cent, or Bt20 million.

This year will also see Nova Trenda's first-ever heavy marketing and brand-awareness campaigns. Rungtip said the two new brands required the company to build its reputation among a wide group of consumers, unlike the Damixa and Sonia brands, which targeted niche markets and tended to require only direct marketing strategies.

She said the company had contracted both local factories and manufacturers in China to make the new products on its behalf. Although Novabath is a newly launched brand, Isani has been in existence and under development since 2000. The highest price for Isani products is Bt5,000, while the same figure is the lowest price for a Novabath product.

Rungtip said the company would arrange about 20 more outlets in both urban and rural areas to sell the two new brands. The company has one new showroom on Rama III Road and is not planning to open any more.

She said the Damixa brand was very well known in the high-end market. Nova Trenda plans to introduce two new Damixa products at the Architect 2007 trade exhibition, which runs from today to May 6 at Impact Muang Thong Thani. The new products include G-type V3.0 faucets priced at Bt40,000 a set and a free-standing bath filler with a hand shower priced at Bt100,000 a set.

Rungtip believes this year will be a difficult one for all players in the sanitaryware and bathroom-equipment markets, because they do not know what is in store for Thai politics and the country's economy.

She says companies will begin to feel the effects of the economic slow-down in the third quarter, because many real-estate projects will have completed construction in the first half of the year, and not many new projects will emerge after that.

Players in the industry might have to rely more heavily on consumers who are renovating their homes and find ways to serve their customers better, which will lead to more intense competition focusing on designs and prices, not on designs and innovations like in the past. Many better-known brands in Thailand that manufacture their products in China will have the advantage of cheaper prices.

Last year, Nova Trenda recorded sales of almost Bt100 million. It expects 30-per-cent growth this year.

Nitida Asawanipont

The Nation