True Corp has earmarked Bt80 million to add 10 new True Coffee shops domestically and abroad, targeting sales growth of 20 per cent from last year's Bt200 million.
Deputy group chief commercial officer Papon Ratanachaikanont yesterday said the company would focus on providing quality services rather than increasing the number of coffee shops. Shop expansion this year will be scaled down to 10 new shops, from 12 shops on average in previous years.
This year's 10 shops will be located in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Hua Hin, while foreign franchise outlets will be opened in Vientiane this month and in Vietnam and Cambodia in the second quarter.
True Corp allocates Bt8 million for each coffee shop.
Yesterday, the company opened the True Coffee Flagship Shop at its new premises in Siam Square's Digital Gateway.
He said the company remains interested in opening True Coffee in China. However, as that entails large-scale plans, the company needs more time to consider the investment.
In China, True plans to be a direct investor, unlike other countries, where True Coffee will sell its franchise licence.
Papon said the shops would cost the same to open in China as they did in Thailand.
He said a decision on entering China would be made soon.
The company is targeting sales growth of 20 per cent this year, lower than the 40 per cent growth to Bt200 million last year.
"Last year's sales growth of 40 per cent came from shop expansion, but this year we won't increase growth very much, because we want to focus on maintaining quality services more than shop expansion," Papon said.
In addition, the elimination of tariffs on coffee imports under the Asean Free-Trade Agreement has benefited local coffee shops and consumers, because there is a greater volume of coffee beans entering Thailand from abroad, and most have lower prices.
However, True Coffee prefers to buy its coffee beans in Chiang Mai, Papon said.
He added that the company did not plan to buy coffee beans from foreign countries as that might change the flavour of True Coffee.
