• 
• 

Published on April 25, 2008

Nitida Asawanipont

The Nation

"Rising consumer prices do not have negative effects only. They help agriculture, which represents a major group of Thais and others with low to middle incomes to generate more money. Therefore, they will have a greater capability to buy audio-visual products," said the company's deputy managing director, Arnut Changtrakul.

He was speaking yesterday at a Thai Samsung roadshow at Impact Muang Thong Thani, during which the company launched a new range of audio-visual products.

Currently, upcountry sales are contributing 45 per cent of Thai Samsung's total sales, while the rest come from Bangkok and its outskirts. The upcountry proportion of sales is expected to increase to 50 per cent by the end of this year, he said.

Samsung's strategy for attracting upcountry consumers is to strengthen cooperation with dealers in the arrangement of special promotions and design campaigns to fit consumer behaviour in each region.

For salaried workers whose incomes will not increase rapidly following the dramatic hike in the cost of living and who are not benefitting from increased prices for such products as oil palm and rice, Thai Samsung still sees a good consuming trend. It believes many will use credit cards, while others will purchase audio-visual products on no-interest deals that the company is offering in cooperation with retailers like Power Mall and PowerBuy.

"I believe the audio-visual market will grow well this year, because the whole economy and the political situation have a better outlook, which drives consumers' confidence. In addition, audio-visual equipment has become a necessary tool for people to consume information, and prices are more reasonable now," Arnut said.

The company launched 100 new audio-visual products at yesterday's roadshow, including 24 LCD-TV models, 10 slim-TV models, seven portable media players and 20 digital cameras.

In the visual market, the company is focusing on "series marketing". Having launched many series of LCD TVs, all of them now fall into one of three categories: expression, elegance or perfection. Expression covers LCD TVs with simple technology for family use, elegance accentuates design, and perfection offers the best technology. The three categories carry individual colours: green for expression, red for elegance and dark blue for perfection.

Arnut said LCD TVs would experience higher growth this year than either slim or flat TVs. The LCD-TV market could even see double growth, from last year's 230,000 units to 500,000. Samsung expects to continue its market leadership in the segment and is planning to lift its market share to 42 per cent, or 210,000 units.

It has also launched a new HD DVD plasma series with a claimed capability of showing pictures in three dimensions.

In the audio market, the company is offering new home entertainment models, including an ultra compact HD DVD and Blu-Ray disc player.

Arnut said the company would spend Bt1 billion on marketing its audio-visual products this year. Of this budget, Bt100 million will be allocated to the period of the Euro 2008 competition in June. The company's sales are expected to rise by more than 30 per cent over this period.

It is also planning to continue music marketing for digital cameras and MP3 products, as well as other campaigns for home theatres. Various major media channels will be used to build awareness of the company's wide product range.