Euro 2012 sparks rush on antenna sales
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Samart Engineering, a major manufacturer and distributor of antennas and satellite receivers, said sales of rooftop and TV-top antennas had doubled last year thanks to the Uefa European Football Championship, or Euro 2012, which starts this week.
According to GMM Grammy, which holds the broadcasting rights for Euro 2012, the tournament’s 31 soccer matches will be available to Thai viewers with conventional antennas that can pick up selected terrestrial TV stations, and to those with GMM Z satellite set-top boxes.
The event is being broadcast from Friday to July 1 by GMM Z, the satellite-TV subsidiary of GMM Grammy, and its partners ThaiTV3, the Royal Thai Army’s TV5 and Modernine TV.
Managing director Thawee Udomkitchote told The Nation that the company had seen sales of rooftop and indoor antennas surge 100 per cent to 500,000 units over normal repurchasing levels in the same period last year. The items were sold via dealers across the country.
“[Euro 2012] has presented a good business opportunity to the company,” he said.
In an earlier interview, he said this year the company had received orders from its dealers for about a million rooftop and TV-top antennas from those who want to watch the tournament.
Meanwhile, the company is ready to produce and distribute TV antennas – both outdoor and indoor – that can receive digital terrestrial TV broadcasting, along with its set-top boxes if the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commis-sion starts digital broadcasting with major free-TV operators, even for a trial period.
The company targets Bt500 million in revenue this year, of which Bt200 million would be from the television antennas, and about Bt200 million from producing automatic-meter readers for the Provincial Electricity Authority.
Last year the company made Bt1 billion in revenue, mostly from producing 600,000 GMM Z satellite TV set-top boxes.
