Singha making aggressive push into region

“We’re conducting a feasibility study on setting up our own brewery in a high-potential country in Indochina, as well as local regulations and joint venture possibilities with existing breweries in the market,” Piti, 32, said last week.
He is a member of the fourth generation of the family that owns the company, and the youngest son of Santi, the company’s CEO.
Piti is also group marketing manager at Singha Corp. He was promoted to the other, new position two months ago.
“We plan to set up offices in markets such as Burma and Cambodia, where our Singha and Leo are some of the best-selling brands. We may establish two offices in Cambodia alone, where our Leo beer is the bestseller along the border. However, Cambodian consumers with high purchasing power usually live in the northern part of the country,” he said.
Indochina contributes sales of 35 million40 million litres per year.
“We however have set a strong growth target of 5080 per cent for Indochina next year depending on each market,” he said.
With the flood situation improving, the company’s flood-impacted factories and its business would resume normal operations by yearend, he said.
During the flooding, the company deployed its people and resources, including distribution trucks, to help flood victims as its first priority.
“We closed our Pathum Thani plant temporarily for about one month and sent our people and trucks from the plant to help people in the flooded areas. The plant just resumed normal operations four or five days ago,” he said.
Only one brewery in Sing Buri and its joint venture shrink-wrap factory named SYP in Rojana Industrial Estate in Ayutthaya had been flooded.
“We’re evaluating the damage to our Sing Buri brewery as the flood waters have already receded. The factory will resume normal operations within two weeks. We purchased a new machine to replace the existing one in our shrink-wrap factory in Rojana Industrial Estate, which is still submerged,” he said.
Singha Corp earlier this year set a target to grow by 5 per cent this year to about 1.2 billion litres.
“According to the policy set by my father Santi, the sales target, if missed, will not have any effect on the bonuses for our employees as they have spent their valuable time to help flood-affected people, which is in line with our policy,” he added.
Chatchai Wiratyosin, marketing director of Singha Corp, said that during the flooding, all of the company’s bottling plants in Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen, Surat Thani, Bang Len and Sam Sen were running flat out to produce drinking water to give away to people suffering from the floods.