Big Camera pictures 20% growth

The company has forecast that the value of the digital-camera market this year will drop 20 per cent from last year's Bt10 billion, due the economic downturn and the maturity of the compact digital-camera market, said managing director Chan Thienkanjanawong.

In terms of volume, the digital-camera market is expected to fall to between 800,00 and 900,000 units from 1 million last year, he added.

Chan said Big Camera had, however, aggressively targeted increasing its sales revenue from Bt1.5 billion last year to Bt1.8 billion, despite the unfavourable market factors.

"This is the first year that the digital-camera market will show negative growth in both units and sales value," he said.

To achieve the sales goal, the company's main strategy is to focus on DSLR (digital single-lens-reflex) camera sales, as this segment has high demand and is expected to post annual growth of 20 to 30 per cent from this year on.

While the market for compact digital cameras is saturated after rapid annual growth of 20 to 30 per cent during the past three years, demand for DSRL cameras is taking off, he added.

Compact digital cameras account for 90 per cent of the Thai market, while DSLR devices take the remainder.

"Most users of compact digital cameras will begin to move to buying DSLR cameras. DSLR cameras are only 10 per cent of our unit sales, the same as the overall market. It is expected that by the year 2012, the ratio between DSLR and compact cameras in the overall market will be 50:50, meaning we have room to grow in the DSLR segment,' said Chan.

Moreover, the company will focus on expanding its Big Camera chain to 150 stores this year. It plans to open 10 shops, of which five have already been established. It will also renovate existing shops and improve after-sales service.

The company set aside Bt40 million for shop expansion and renovation this year.

He added that because Big Camera's customers are in the middle to high-end segment, they are only slightly affected by the economic situation.

The company is spending an additional Bt10 million to hold its third annual "Big Pro Day" event from July 1 to 5 at CentralWorld. About 300,000 visitors and sales of Bt30 million are expected at the five-day show.