Thai Habel sets sights on regional market for Altron TV

Narindej Thaveesangpanich, deputy managing director, said the company would follow a “strength from within” strategy by growing slowly but in a stable manner in Thailand and then expanding into other countries.
He said that as a Thai brand, the company had received many awards and certificates from the government and private-sector associations. These included the Thailand Trust Mark and Prime Minister’s Award from the Commerce Ministry. 
“Fortunately, ‘made in Thailand’ is well known in neighbouring countries, especially in Indochina. We will leverage ourselves and transform this as our key strength to compete with global rivals,” he said.
Narindej said that this year Altron would focus on brand awareness by embedding the slogan of “a Thai TV for Thais”. He said the company wanted to make Thai people proud that their country had a decent Thai brand that was not only bringing out good, high-quality products along with the best service but was also bringing pride to Thai people.
“We would like Altron to be recognised as a brand that is seriously dedicating its products and services to Thai people and will … expand its wings into Indochina,” he said.
He said Altron was already well established in Laos, while it accessed Myanmar and Cambodia mainly via border trade. After fully penetrating those three countries step by step, the company would take the brand into the Vietnamese market.
“Devoted to customers” is the key strategy for this year, which means emphasising brand positioning in the targeted market. It will also expand its distribution system from more than 500 stores nationwide currently.
Altron has also appointed more than 85 authorised service centres all over Thailand. 
Founded in 1987, Thai Habel Industrial now operates two major factories for television sets and other electrical appliances, including DVD players, electric rice cookers and electric kettles, in Prachin Buri and Nakhon Pathom.
Narindej said the company was still recovering from losses and damages sustained in a fire at its Prachin Buri factory in November 2015. For now, it is focusing on maximum utilisation of its existing facilities rather than building new ones.
He said it was difficult to make any projections for the overall market right now.
“Thai people have been facing a special circumstance, having lost His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, which was the most painful feeling to the entire nation. The market has been slow ever since, though the ‘Shop to help the Nation’ campaign did well enough to stimulate spending in the very last period of [last] year, but not as efficiently as in 2015. I would rather wait and see a bit more before predicting anything for 2017. 
“What I can see now is that the home-appliances market will keep growing, with audio-visual appliances either remaining stable or perhaps growing very slightly,” he said.
“The key challenge in 2017 is the intensity of the competition among all the players in the market.”