Epson eyes larger market share with new plant in Thailand 

Meanwhile, Epson (Thailand) is expected to help the company generate revenue growth of 4 per cent in fiscal year 2018, rising to 5 per cent in fiscal 2019.
Toshimitsu Tanaka, the managing director of Epson Singapore, said the firm this year is investing in its new plant in Chachoengsao province to produce quartz devices for exports. The firm expects to hire more than 1,000 workers for the new plant. The new manufacturing line is expected to go on stream in the middle of this year. However, the firm did not disclose the total investment.
Yunyong Muneemongkoltorn, director of Epson (Thailand), said the firm in fiscal 2019 (April 2019 to March, 2020) is focusing on three business units – printing solutions, projectors, as well as wearables and robotics.
The overall printer and projector markets are declining or seeing flat growth in the domestic market. However, the firm will focus on industrial and commercial markets for printers, which have high demand. Meanwhile, projectors will focus on the education and retail markets.
“I think the overall IT market in Thailand this year will have flat growth. The stable politics and the upcoming local elections will be factors to drive the economy and the IT market as a whole,” said the director.
The firm targets 4-per-cent revenue growth in fiscal 2018 (April 2018 to March, 2019). Of the total revenue, 75 per cent will come from printing solutions, 20 per cent from projector products and 5 per cent from wearables and robotics. The firm in 2018 achieved market share of around 95 per cent for dot matrix printers while projectors achieved market share of 44 per cent. The company is No 1 in both dot matrix printers and projectors in the Thai market.
To drive market growth, the firm has launched a new projector designed for the education market. The EB-L20000U projector comes in a light and compact design and is easy to integrate into existing infrastructure. The L12000Q projector, which is the industry’s first 12,000 lumen native 4K 3LCD laser projector, will support demand in the market.
“We are eyeing the factors that will drive the IT market this year from international and domestic economic factors, the US-China trade war, Brexit, domestic elections and politics after the Thai elections. I think this year the printer market will decline. Meanwhile, the growth of the projector market will see a jump due to increasing demand,” said the director.
He added that the firm also aims to expand the business of Scara Robots to support industrial, education and small and medium enterprises. The firm provides inkjet printers to support all segments of the market, starting from homes to large enterprises market, he said.