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Seacon offers cheaper Compact units

Bangkok Post Mar 10, 2009

Seacon Group Ltd plans to slim down prices of its low-end houses by 5-10% under its affiliate Compact Home to lure customers amid poor market sentiment, according to general manager Supitcha Chaipipat. Prices of the redesigned housing units are expected to come down to 1.2 million from 1.3-1.4 million baht. The design of the new cheaper housing is set to be unveiled at the end of this month.

Ms Supitcha said housing priced below 2 million baht had been hard hit by the global and domestic economic crises as about 70-80% of customers in this segment need mortgage loans while banks have tightened credit.

''We plan to adjust the structure of the house to make it cheaper while using the same amount of steel and cement. We'll modify the structure of the box housing, which is an old housing design, to make it more modern while prices will also become more attractive,'' Ms Supitcha said.

The company recorded sales of about 200 million baht in the last two months. Of that, about 150 million baht came from housing under the Seacon brand and the rest from Compact.

In the Home Builder Fair 2009 held late last month, Ms Supitcha said its houses priced from 2.5 million to 5 million baht made up the highest proportion of deals made at the event.

''The sentiment picked up in the past two months when compared with the end of last year. It shows that consumers still have purchasing power, but are uncertain about the economy and political situation,'' she said. ''However, we still have to keep an eye on the market.''

Seacon yesterday launched a home delivery service Seacon Compact Home Delivery as part of its proactive strategy to create service differentiation. The company is offering home service for customers to choose design at home.

Seacon targets revenue of 1.1 billion baht this year, unchanged from last year. Around 800 million baht is anticipated to come from orders to build about 200 units under the Seacon brand and 300 million baht from about 150 units under the Compact brand.