Home Product Centre to invest Bt500m in first store in KL
Home Product Centre, operator of HomePro home centres, will next year open its first store in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with an investment of Bt500 million.
Scheduled to officially open in November 2014, in one of the Malaysian capital’s biggest shopping malls, the store will occupy about 7,500 square metres of retail space.
Kunnawut Thampromkul, managing director of Home Products Centre, said that competition in the home products market in Malaysia was less competitive than in Thailand, despite Malaysians enjoying a lifestyle and income level similar to that of their Thai counterparts.
“From these driving factors, we have seen great opportunity in doing home centre business in Malaysia. We also plan to increase our stores in Malaysia to 40 within the next eight to 10 years,” he said.
In addition, the first home centre in Malaysia with its own premises is expected to open in 2015.
The company is also interested in expanding its home centre business into other Asean markets – particularly Indonesia and the Philippines – which are being targeted by the company after Malaysia, under the “HomePro” brand. Other markets of interest to Home Product Centre include Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar.
Kunnawut said that this year the company had opened 11 new HomePro stores in Thailand, a larger expansion than in 2012, when the company managed to open only between five to six new stores.
Three new stores are scheduled to open in Saraburi, Chiyaphum, and Phetchabun provinces in the fourth quarter of this year, and two more stores will open in Chiang Rai and Loey provinces by November and December respectively.
In addition, the company has opened two new Mega-Home stores in Rangsit and in the district of Mae Sot in Tak province to tap contractors and retailers in the two regions. By the end of this year, the company will have a total of 64 HomePro stores.
Home Products Centre expects to achieve Bt40 billion in total sales this year, up between 17 and 18 per cent over last year, and above its 15 per cent target set earlier for this year.
There are currently about 1.7 million holders of HomePro member cards. Spending per transaction increased by 8 per cent to between Bt2,500 and Bt2,600.
The company also expects to achieve sales of between Bt700 million and Bt800 million from its Mega Home stores.
Anan Asawapokin, chairman of Home Products Centre, said major driving factors of Thailand's economy in 2014 would be the government’s Bt2-trillion infrastructure project, the export and tourism sectors, and the strength of consumer spending in the domestic market.
