Thai operations to play key role for Mitsubishi Electric
MITSUBISHI Electric Group has set an annual global sales target of 5 trillion yen (Bt1.4 trillion) for 2020, up 20 per cent from estimated sales in the Japanese giant's current fiscal year, which ends in March.
The contribution of the group’s overseas sales is also anticipated to increase significantly, from 30-35 per cent posted in fiscal year 2013 to more than 50 per cent in 2020.
Overseas performance will be driven to a large extent by the growth of the Southeast Asian region due to market integration when the Asean Economic Community (AEC) is implemented this year, with the group’s Thai operations expected to play a central role.
Yasushi Moriyama, managing director of Mitsubishi Electric Kang Yong Wattana – the group’s sales and marketing arm in Thailand – said overall growth would be driven by the balance between three key success factors. These are stability in the group’s profit-generating capacity; maintaining its financial status; and the conduct of business legally and ethically with the continuous development of innovation and new technologies.
“We are also quite actively expanding our global market, as well as preparing for our operations under the AEC, which comes into [full] effect towards the end of this year, through human-resource development.
“At the same time, we aim to become the leading green company, which is in line with the group’s corporate environment vision, such as reducing our carbon-dioxide emissions by over 30 per cent by 2021,” he said.
Moriyama said that once it was fully effective, the AEC would allow the free flow of goods, services, investment and labour, turning Asean into a single market with about 600 million people.
“We [Mitsubishi Electric Group] have a solid manufacturing foundation in Thailand, and it will be the key facility and centre for us in distributing products to the rest of the Asean market,” he added.
Praphon Potivorakun, deputy managing director of Mitsubishi Electric Kang Yong Wattana, said the unit’s sales performance in the fiscal year to March 31 was expected to be in line with the target of Bt13.5 billion, up 6 per cent from the previous year.
Higher sales
The company expects sales in fiscal year 2015 to increase by another 7.4 per cent, to about Bt14.5 billion.
“This year, we have revised our plan for service-centre and after-sales service operations, covering three major approaches: development of our service to be faster and more efficient; focusing on personnel development to improve service and technical efficacy; and expanding our service network to broaden the service area throughout the country,” Praphon said.
Anun Bunjerdtum, director and general manager of the marketing and sales division, said the company had been assigned by its headquarters in Japan to take care of the Laotian market last year. Five dealers have already been appointed in Laos, a market that is showing good purchasing power at this time, he said.
“For Thailand, we are currently the No 1 player in the air-conditioner market, with a share of between 33 and 34 per cent. We have been able to raise our market share by more than 1 percentage point in the current fiscal year,” he said.
The overall air-conditioner market in Thailand posted growth of only 4 per cent last year to about 1.25 million units, he added.
“We have also set up a new business division to take care of new environment-friendly products, such as LED [light-emitting diode] lighting systems and solar cells, which are being launched into the market gradually,” Anun said.
