TV Direct teams with TrueVisions

TV Direct chief executive officer Songpol Chanmatkit said yesterday that the company's direct sales continued to grow despite the economic downturn.

He added that people still have purchasing power and one of the company's top products group are health-related items.

The partnership will enable TV Direct to penetrate TrueVisions' existing 1.6 million subscribers, who are in the mid- to high-end markets.

Songpol said that the 24-hour "Shopping Network" channel targeted total sales revenue of Bt70 million in the next six months and Bt150 million within 12 months. TV Direct has already invested Bt50 million to set up a new call centre and related facilities to handle orders from TrueVisions subscribers.

The partnership is based on a revenue-sharing basis between TrueVisions and TV Direct but Songpol declined to give further financial details.

TV Direct promotes products via free-to-air TV channels, including local cable and satellite TV channels. It posted total sales revenue of Bt1 billion last year.

Songpol said the company had 800,000 members nationwide, of which 32 per cent were in Bangkok. Chiang Mai is one of its biggest customer bases.

He added that customers placed orders at an average rate of 1.25 a month, with an average value of Bt3,800 per order.