Asian Property Development has sharpened its competitive edge by reorganising to focus on the middle-income market with residences priced up to Bt2 million and after-sales service.
"If we want to build our business by 10 per cent a year, we have to restructure to support our growth," chief executive Anuphong Assavabhokin told a press conference yesterday.
The company also plans to launch 16 residential projects worth Bt29.41 billion from now to the first half of next year. Five will be single-family homes worth Bt7.25 billion in total, four will be townhouses worth Bt5.58 billion, five will be condominiums worth Bt13.8 billion and two will be townhouses worth Bt2.8 billion, with prices ranging up to Bt2 million.
The budget to buy land this year has been raised from Bt5 million to Bt7 billion, with Bt4.5 billion already spent in the first half, and Bt2.5 billion to be used up in the second half.
Four business units have been set up - single-family homes, townhouses, condominiums and a new business that will build townhouses at prices ranging up to Bt2 million.
The company has moved its marketing and commercial functions, which have supported the four business units, to a new business unit that directly reports to the group. Marketing has the responsibility to design marketing strategy and learn what customers want, while the commercial business will focus on after-sales service and respond to customer complaints.
The new business units have recruited two marketers from con
sumer products - Vittakarn Chandavimol, as deputy chief officer for strategic marketing, and Marote Vananan, as deputy chief officer for commercial service.
A construction firm has been established to manage its new business of building townhouses priced up to Bt2 million. Supalak Chanpitak, who had been the executive vice president of Pruksa Real Estate, was appointed as the managing director of the construction firm and chief of Business Unit 4.
The company now has a backlog worth Bt18.77 billion, inventory worth Bt9.88 billion, and at least 16 planned projects worth Bt29.43 billion, of which nine worth Bt21 billion will be launched this year and the remaining projects in the first half of next year. Combined, they make up its portfolio worth Bt58.09 billion.
Currently, 45 per cent of its total revenue comes from condo projects, 32.5 per cent from townhouses and 32.5 per cent from single-family homes.
After restructuring, the company expects each business unit to contribute an average 25 per cent of revenue within two years.
The new townhouses priced up to Bt2 million will be prefabricated to cut construction costs.
New hires will bring its headcount from 700 now to 800-900 next year.
Asian Property Development continues to target total revenue growth at 10 per cent this year.
The company earned Bt1.8 billion on revenue of Bt12.4 billion last year, and Bt1.5 billion on revenue of Bt8.4 billion in the first half of this year. That ranked it the third-largest in the market behind Pruksa and Sansiri.