Sansiri may lower full-year targets in light of falling Q4 demand 

“We will consider at the end of this month whether to revise our presales and revenue targets downward, after seeing a drop-off in demand in October and the first two weeks of November. We may lower our earlier estimates by up to 5 per cent,” he said.
The listed developer’s current full-year targets are Bt42 billion for presales and Bt33 billion for overall revenue. 
For the first nine months of the year, the company reported presales of Bt20 billion and revenue of Bt22.7 billion. 
Srettha said that as the market situation for the closing part of the year could not be predicted with any degree of confidence, the company was unable to promise that presales and revenue would come in on-target.
However, the company is continuing with its plan to launch eight projects together worth Bt24.5 billion, in order to boost sales and total revenue for the full year.

Foreign boost
Following the decline in domestic demand, Srettha said Sansiri was now accelerating sales to foreign buyers interested in staying in Thailand and/or buying as an investment, with the company focusing on Asian markets such as China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. 
“We are confident our sales to foreign buyers will reach Bt5 billion by the end of this year, more than 10 per cent higher than last year due to foreign investors continuing to expand their investment in Thailand’s property market, especially in luxury condominiums in Bangkok’s central business districts,” he explained.
Sansiri’s president expects 2017 to be a challenging year for the company in terms of expanding its investment in new locations, given that the government is now kicking off in earnest mega-infrastructure projects worth over Bt300 billion.
When the government begins to invest in these projects during the remainder of the year and throughout next year, it will open up a new landscape for the property sector to expand its investment in residential projects to serve new demand in these new locations, he said.
“When the infrastructure expands from Bangkok’s central business districts into the suburbs it will create new land locations for developers to expand their investment to develop residential projects to meet the new demand,” he added. 
Meanwhile, although the company’s investment plan for 2017 will be roughly the same as or slightly more than this year’s in terms of project launches and the overall value of new projects, he said it would continue to achieve business growth of just under 10 per cent during the year. 
“Our business strategy is to expand our products to cover all market segments, from budget homes through to the luxury market. This will maintain our 2017 business growth at this year’s level,” Srettha said.
The company will continue to focus on developing residential projects for sale by targeting both domestic demand and foreign buyers, he said.
“We may be invest in hotels or retail, but they would serve our residential projects rather than being our main income for the future,” he pointed out.

Highly competitive year ahead
He also said he expected the residential property market next year to be highly competitive between the leading players, while small and medium-sized firms – those with annual revenue lower than Bt10 billion – would be able to survive by developing niche products customised to demand.
They can focus on the area or design, which will help them to survive the intense competition next year and beyond, at a time when market leaders are expanding their investment to cover all segments in order to maintain their business growth, he added.
“Location and price are still the main factors for customers when deciding what to buy, but design and function finally come into play in selecting a property that meets their needs when there are a number of projects in the same area offering similar prices,” Srettha said.
This is why Sansiri is also concerned about design and functionality in all the projects it offers to customers, as such an approach creates product differentiation that keeps it apart from its competitors, he added.