Monthee Vuthirong appointed as country manager for ASUS Thailand's Open Platform Business Group

ASUSTeK Computer (Thailand) has announced the appointment of Monthee Vuthirong as the Country Manager of ASUS Thailand’s Open Platform Business Group (OP BG), effective from April 1st, 2012. 

 

The new country manager for ASUS OP Thailand embarks on his first mission to announce the business performance of 2012’s first quarter totaling THB.450 million, calculated at 10% growth comparing to the same period last year. The marketing focus for this year is the home-solutions product lineups, which will be rolled out into the market aggressively throughout the year utilizing 360 degree marketing tools. The product lineups highlights benefits from the outstanding functions that can fulfill discerning needs of home users, categorized into three product groups: Gaming at home, Multimedia at home and Office at home. To push forward the market growth, ASUS has allocated 10% of the total income as marketing budget to communicate through several channels, such as advertising, public relations, and below-the-line activations, to better reach target groups including premium end-users and highly-involved users. The company continues to raise public awareness about its OP BG’s extensive product lineups and to boost more sales. 

 

Monthee Vuthirong, former Business Development Manager, Open Platform Business Group of ASUS Thailand, has been appointed recently as Country Manager of Open Platform Business Group, ASUSTeK Computer (Thailand) Co., Ltd, effective from April 1st, 2012. His new role is to drive the organization and push forward all the available resources to reform the entire Open Platform Business Group of ASUS Thailand. He reports directly to ASUS’ Headquarters in Taiwan to ensure flexibility and adaptability for the operations of the OP Business Group in Thailand, which consists of a wide range of products that need specific market focuses. Under Monthee’s leadership, the Open Platform Business Group of ASUS Thailand has a mission to respond to the policy of the headquarters to drive growth for all product groups, as well as to create brand recognition and more trust in ASUS’ OP products among the consumers. Ultimately, ASUS OP BG is gearing up to offer product’s differentiation with more benefits that can cater to all needs of the consumers, including excellent functions, durability and attractive design. 

 

Monthee said that the market overview of open-platform products in Thailand totals an approximate value of Bt5.5 billion, categorized into Bt1.5 billion in motherboards, Bt900 million in VGA cards, Bt40 million in networking solutions and Bt3.0 billion in LCD monitors. In 2011, ASUS OP Business in Thailand, including product lineups of motherboards, VGA cards, wireless networking equipments, LCDs and other multimedia equipments, had total revenue of Bt1.6 billion, a 12% growth comparing to last year. As for the business performance of 2012’s first quarter recently closed on March 31, 2012, the OP BG had total revenue of THB450 million, a 10% growth compared to the same period last year. The motherboard product lineups are still our flagship products that contribute over 60% or around THB270 million earning to the company, followed by VGA cards at 25%, LCD monitors at 5% and wireless networking equipments at 2%.”

 

“In 2012, ASUS has allocated a comprehensive marketing strategy to compete the market throughout the year by focusing on the ‘Home Solutions’ product groups. This discerning range of product lineups will be offered to our consumers to fulfill their needs for several activities within a home, categorized into three main groups: Gaming at home, Multimedia at home and Office at home. The first group, Gaming at home products, features a wide assortment of fine-quality component portfolios for enhanced gaming experience such as desktops, motherboards and VGA card while the second group, Multimedia at home, highlights cutting-edge multimedia innovations for home entertainment like O!Play and Xonar Essence One DAC (digital to analog converter) for Hi-fi quality sound. Finally, the third group, Office at home, offers home-office solutions from general functions to professional-grade products, such as desktops, all-in-one PCs, LCDs and networking equipments for graphic design, architectural work and other specific needs. By pushing forward the sales for the ‘Home Solutions’ product groups, ASUS will not compete by lowering down the prices, but to offer product’s differentiation and added-value for customers, highlighting enhanced quality, attractive looks as those of home decorative items or furniture, as well as more benefits than market counterparts. We have targeted premium end-users and highly-involved users.” 

 

“ASUS will also focus on expanding more distribution channel through modern trade and super stores nationwide by 70%, as well as partnering up with other industry players to promote gaming tournaments, both in the national and international levels. This is to better reach our target groups who are usually involved in this type of activity. Recently, we have joined hand with True Digital Plus to roll out our sponsorship for the GG E-sport Champion League 2012 by ASUS which had just announced the recruitment of contestants. For this tournament, ASUS has sponsored 60 units of high-performance desktops, as well as gaming-grade motherboards and VGA cards from the ASUS brand. We also provided those contestants with live-demos of our gamers’ product series in order to open an opportunity for them to experience our products closely. We hope that this sponsorship will lead to more brand recognition among the consumers, as well as our bespoke quality from ASUS products which can become gamers’ choices for their personal use at home or in other gaming venues.” 

 

Monthee continues: “For 2012, ASUS has injected 10% more marketing budget, calculated over Bt20 million for the OP BG to carry out a 360 degree marketing communications through different channels such as advertising, public relations, above-the-line and below-the-line marketing promotion. This year, we focus especially on below-the-line marketing activities with an aim to deliver a perfect experience for users. We have allocated three target groups for the activation, consisting of dealers, end-users and media representatives. To better reach our dealers, we provide intensive training sessions packed with details about products, sales technique and understanding of concepts and benefits of ASUS products. We also tutor our dealers closely using the live-demo in order to convey a better picture of how each product function works. To reach the end-users, we increase our involvement in partnership and sponsorship of gaming tournament and consumer events. By obtaining opportunities from these venues, we provide on-site demos for gamers and contestants, as well as organize roadshows in Bangkok and major cities all over the country. This is a crafty way to let our target groups try out ASUS product first before making further decision to buy our products. As I explained that we do not compete with the pricing, but we create opportunities for end-users to be involved with our products, and once these target consumers realize the benefits and better functions from their real experience with ASUS, they will recognize our brand. Moreover, we focus on the activation with media representatives and key influencers by retaining good relationship with them. These people will help passing on details and information about our products, their benefits and their qualityto attract more end-consumers into ASUS’ representing stores.” 

 

“As the maker of the world’s best-selling and most award winning motherboards, and as the market leader with No.1 share in the Thai market at 55%, ASUS continues rolling out new innovative products with high-standard quality into the market. ASUS hopes that we will be able to increase the market share of the Open Platform Business around 10% more in 2012 while retaining our No.1 position in motherboards and VGA cards consecutively,” Monthee concludes.