Aritco to set up home lift production in the Kingdom

The expansion is in line with the Swedish group’s investment strategy to focus more on the Asian market to cash in on the region’s growing middle-class and modern way of living, which is projected to create huge demand for home lifts in the marketplace. 
Tommy Lowback, managing director of Aritco Group, said |that the opening of production facilities for home lifts in China, Thailand and India will be via |the group’s sole investment or through a joint venture with local partners.
“We will start local production in China probably next year and in 2018 in Thailand and India,” said Lowback.
He said that using local production would enable the group |to save on transportation time |and source components, such as glass.
“However, to be worth setting up local production, those markets should have a minimum sales |volume of about 300 units per annum,” said Lowback.
He added that the minimum investment for setting up each plant should be between 500,000 euro (Bt19.3 million) and one million euros. 
Lowback said that Aritco Group’s annual revenue is ex-|pected to surge from 40 million euros expected this year to about 100 million euros in the next five years.
“We expect the sales contri-bution from Asia to be double |from 15 per cent currently to |about 30 per cent in the next five years,” he said. “The business potential is great in Asia and the Middle East.”
Aritco was established in Stockholm 20 years ago. Since then, the group has sold more than 30,000 lifts, mainly to the public in Europe. 
Today, the group produces 3,000 lifts per year or one lift every 30 minutes.
Aritco also decided to enter into the emerging home market about five years ago. The group has developed the world’s first lift entirely designed for homes.
The company started its home lift business in Asia in 2009. 
“We will invest heavily next year in Asia, especially in China, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and India,” he said.
Lowback said that Aritco currently had representative offices in Thailand, Malaysia and China. The group will next year open representative offices in India and Indonesia.
Aritco currently has local distributors in Myanmar, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Brunei. The group plans to set up its own representative offices in the Philippines and Vietnam.
The company will start opening its own showrooms within the region at the beginning of next |year. It expects to have about 50 showrooms in Asia by the end of next year, of which 20 will be in China.
“The home lift market in Asia has grown by 15 per cent annually on average. However, we are increasing 100 per cent in annual sales in this region. We think we |do something right. We have |good products and good business partners in the region,” said Lowback.
Lowback said that in Europe, the group had seen lower growth at about 6 per cent per annum.
“While most of our customers in Europe are museums, schools, and offices, about 95 per cent of customers in Asia are private houses,” he said.
“We have seen growing middle-classes in Asia. It’s different from Europe. In Asia, about three generations of the family live in the same home. People in Asia also want to live in a more modern life and [with more] comfort.”
Tana Sripongtanakul, managing director of Aritco Thailand, the group’s sole distributor in the Kingdom, said that home lifts will become part of people’s daily lives in a similar way to air-conditioners.
“In Thailand, we have operated the business for four years and about 300 units of home lifts have been sold so far into the market. We however expect to sell another 200 home lifts domestically next year alone,” he said.
Tana said that the target customers of Aritco home-lift products are middle to high-income earners. 
And thanks to its affordable prices, ranging from between Bt1.1 million to Bt2 million, Thais have responded positively to the products, he said.
He added that Thailand’s ageing society meant more people were looking for facilities like home lifts to better cater for the elderly.