Chuo Senko Thailand restructures to shore up stagnating ad-agency revenue
FACED with a stagnating advertising market, Chuo Senko (Thailand) has spun off its core business to a new subsidiary, Chuo Senko Advertising (Thailand), and transformed another subsidiary, Wonder Asia, an event organiser, into an advertising agency to lan
Shuji Okawa, president and chief executive officer of Chuo Senko (Thailand), said yesterday that the restructuring would leave Chuo Senko (Thailand) as a holding company.
Ratchasub Nishida, president and CEO of Chuo Senko Advertising (Thailand), said his company would continue serving the seven existing clients – Honda motorcycles and cars, Yum-Yum instant noodles, Hitachi, Aeon card, Tokyu department store, Thanachart Bank and CAT Telecom.
“We expect to have at least three new clients this year. Among those targeted customers, the company has secured China’s telecom giant Huawei as a client for the Thai market,” he said.
Okawa said that although existing clients had kept spending on advertising to boost consumer confidence and drive sales, it was not enough to maintain projected growth of 10 per cent this year.
This led the company to explore opportunities in other areas including conflict clients.
Wonder Asia, which was founded in 2012 with Bt3 million in registered capital, will work with those new clients.
Chuo Senko (Thailand) has also proposed a capital increase from Bt112.50 million to Bt225 million through a rights issue to all existing shareholders. The proceeds will be earmarked for business expansion.
It plans to develop more businesses, such as customer-relations management and content and brand agency as well as expanding its overseas subsidiaries.
Recently it partnered with Dai Nippon Printing, another Japanese company, to offer corporate social responsibility, space design management and factory-tour planning to develop business in the Southeast Asia market, and develop new services by drawing on the knowledge and strengths of both companies.
Dai Nippon has secured two projects worth Bt80 million.
Last year, the group’s total billings collected from clients increased 3.6 per cent to Bt1.57 billion, while Chuo Senko (Thailand)’s billings rose 4.7 per cent to 1.14 billion.
Chuo Senko Group’s first-quarter billings reached Bt355.3 million, of which Bt135 million was from Chuo Senko (Thailand) and Bt94.14 million from Chuo Senko Advertising.
Chuo Senko (Thailand) also operates in six neighbouring countries – Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, India, Myanmar and the Philippines – that account for 30 per cent of group revenue.
