American Standard firm eyes 20% growth in 2012

“This year, income will be driven by three key factors: continuity of investing in the brand, and in new products; more big real-estate projects and construction; and increased production capacity,” Craig McEachern, managing director of American Standard B&K Thailand, said yesterday.
After being hit by flooding in the fourth quarter of last year, the company’s Rangsit manufacturing site was operating at about 10 per cent of total capacity at one point.
The plant resumed full capacity in March and expects to be running at 140 per cent by the end of this year, McEachern said.
This is part of the company’s Bt900-million expansion plan, launched in February last year, in which Thailand will remain the firm’s main manufacturing hub for Southeast Asia.
The company produces a number of bathroom products for domestic consumption and export markets in Southeast Asia. The domestic market accounts for 60 per cent of total production capacity, while the remainder is for export.
McEachern said his company placed an emphasis on brand awareness. It is investing Bt30 million in a major give-away campaign for customers in the Kingdom, under the slogan “Choose Your Style, Drive Your Way”, to mark its 10th anniversary in the country. The promotion campaign is aimed at building confidence among distributors that the company is ready to move on from the terrible floods.
This year, its marketing efforts will focus on its Nobile, La Vita and Cygnet collections.
“Even though daily wages have increased, so far there is no significant impact on our business, so we have no plan to raise any prices of the products, and no plan to relocate our plant from Rangsit,” the managing director said.
Besides the plant in Rangsit – American Standard’s biggest worldwide – the company has another in Rayong.