VMG is the major shareholder in Titanium Compass which holds the right to manage media advertising along new rail routes in Malaysia for ten years. The company also holds the major stake in Meru Utama Sdn Bhd, which holds the right to manage advertising at Malaysian airports.

 As a retail leader that recognises the needs and concerns of customers, and in wanting to deliver the highest levels of customer satisfaction, IKEA is ensuring that home lovers can shop with increased confidence.

“In today’s digital age with well-informed customers, we have to proactively reassess our current policies in order to deliver a positive experience. At the end of the day, we want to provide our customers the best end-to-end journey at IKEA and our new return policy is a step in that direction,” said Mike King, Deputy Managing Director, IKEA Southeast Asia.

Business Unit Consumer Goods returned to sales growth in the first half of 2018. This required targeted investments and initiatives that impacted profits. DKSH substantially upgraded key account management, expanded the route-to-market and invested in its businesses in Indonesia and e-commerce. DKSH also recently announced an agreement to sell its healthcare business in China to Warburg Pincus, emphasizing the increased strategic focus of the Group.

CEO Stefan Butz, said the three business units – Healthcare, Performance Materials and Technology reported good results and increased profitability.

In Business Unit/ Consumer Goods, it managed to increase net sales for the first time in several years, though the targeted  initiatives and investments in this business resulted in higher costs.

Group operating profit was at last year’s level. DKSH, on a Group level, developed its acquisition pipeline and strengthened its presence in New Zealand with the purchase of Davies Foods. We also further increased our strategic focus with the transaction in China.

The China-based technology giant is also releasing a new mid-range smartphone in Thailand to boost its revenue growth.

Tossaporn Nisthanon, deputy country director at Huawei Consumer Business Group (Thailand), said that meeting its ambition for the top spot in 2020 would give the company a market share of more than 20 per cent.

The market for smartphones and other mobile phones has reached sales of around 1.2 million units a month. The firm has gained a market share of 14.7 per cent, putting it in second place in the segment, Tossaporn said.

The new mid-range smartphone series, comprising the Huawei nova 3 and nova 3I, uses high-end technology such as artificial intelligence.

Huawei said the nova 3 and nova 3i have been “designed to redefine the selfie”, with four cameras and AI technology on Huawei’s new NPU chipsets. The nova 3 sells for Bt16,990 and the nova 3I, Bt9,990. Pre-orders for the nova 3 series are being taken from today until July 31 and customers can get hold of the phones in early August.

Tossaporn said that in the future the firm will release a new tablet, a new product category, and other gadgets to support its market goals.

It will also distribute its products and gadgets via omnichannel pathways.

Tossaporn said that the smartphone market had declined in the first haft of this year, under pressure from low-end models priced at less than Bt5,000.

However, he said the market would pick up in the in the second half of this year, thanks to the release of new models backed by promotional campaigns. He sees the mid-range smartphone market – with models priced from Bt5,000 to Bt15,000 – increasing as users upgrade from the low end of the market.

The firm said that by the end of this year it expects to provide 100,000 transaction a month. It also expects to create an e-transaction value of around US$5 billion in the next five years.

Aswin Phlaphongphanich, chief executive of SawasdeeShop, said the DeeMoney application has been designed for Android smartphones. With the application, users can access international digital money transfer services to cover 180 countries.

Users who want to access these services must register at branches and show their ID cards or passports. The application will support the iOS system from next month.

“We provide one-stop services for international money transfers and currency exchanges at 21 outlets and four branches in Bangkok,” said Aswin.

“We have created a strategic partnership with SuperRich International Exchange (1965) to offer exchange services in 34 currencies at its outlets. We are providing services with secure, affordable fees for customers’ satisfaction. They can have confidence in accessing our services.”

It also has created a promotion campaign to run until December 31, enabling customers to make international transfers from Bt1,000 to Bt800,000. They will pay a flat service charge fee of Bt150 per transaction.

He said that the value of money transfers of inbound remittances to Thailand is US$6.7 billion. Outbound remittances are valued at US$4.1 billion, with a money exchange volume of US$36.7 billion.

“We are a non-bank international money transfer license operator in Thailand, with the licence issued by the Bank of Thailand (BoT),” said Aswin.

“DeeMoney is positioned to provide secure and affordable international money remittance and payment solutions to the unbanked population of 5 million foreign workers from Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar working in Thailand, as well as the 300,000 expatriates, 30 million tourists and domestic Thais nationwide.”

The firm in the third quarter of this year will allow customers to transfer money via QR code. It will also provide an e-KYC (know your customer), e-wallet, blockchain-based services, digital assets and cryptocurrencies, digital money exchange and business money transfers to support its customers in the future.

He added that the company will hold a 49 per cent stake in the joint venture firm, Kinghill Food Co Ltd, with 51 per cent held by Kinghill Overseas Holdings Ltd.

Following the business expansion in China, the company expects its total revenue will increase by up to four-fold from its estimated revenue of Bt600 million this year, he said.

Nart Liewcharoen, chief executive officer of CDG Group, said the company is moving from being a systems integrator to an organisation that provide solutions and platforms to support citizen-centric services. This transition supports the broader goals of the government’s Thailand 4.0 policy and will improve competitiveness and business sustainability for the benefit of the country. Nart said

“The world is changing fast due to technological disruption. With our 50 full years of experience in delivering digital technology solutions to organisations in both the public and private sectors, we are ready to empower the country with enhanced capabilities that will successfully transform the country under the Thailand 4.0 model,” Nart said. “The Thailand 4.0 initiative is part of the government’s attempt to prepare and take advantage of our abilities in order to strengthen national competitiveness.”

The firm will provide its solutions and platforms to support five main areas that the company calls the future of smart, behavioural revolution , empowered citizen, urban world and resourceful planet.

For the future of smart, the firm will provide solutions and platforms to support logistics, medical, services, banking, e-commerce activities.

With behaviour revolution, it will provide services to monitor individuals’ behavioural changes and brand preferences on online channels. This will enable companies to customise their offerings to address consumers’ changing needs.

For empowered citizen, the firm will cooperate with the government, the private sector and the people in order to promote social innovation creation and the development of smart citizens.

Meanwhile, the urban world is to offer smart infrastructure and innovative digital technology that enhances convenience and security in society, with the aim of improving the quality of life of people, Nart said.

For resourceful planet, the company will use innovation and technology to support the demands of the market, such as with Internet of thing (IoT) solutions and machine learning technology.

Nart said that CDG aims to bring the latest technology and innovations to help its customers cope with the new trends.

“CDG will continue to improve our services and enhance our capability in delivering practical IT solutions by promoting our people development and introducing technology that will create benefits to the government sector and this will improve quality of life of the people. With such efforts, we hope to support the government in modernising Thailand,” said Nart.

The firm is also expanding its business into Vietnam and Myanmar.

Chatchai said the bank began carrying out its own work on setting up the digital technology system last year. In a sign of the progress made, the bank will introduce its mobile application, GHB All, in the third quarter of this year. The app will provide all the functions required by customers, such as the ability to make monthly payments, apply for mortgages, and make deposits and withdrawals, Chatchai said recently.

The bank has also created its QR Non Cash Payment service to meet the needs of the cashless society and plans to make the service available this month. The new services are part of the company’s shift in its business model to the provision of digital services for its customers, Chatchai said.

GHB expects its customers will use the GHB All application for up to 50 per cent of the total transactions carried out each month. Currently, the bank logs an average of 700,000 transactions a month, with mortgage payments amounting to a large share of this.

“This will help us to reduce high traffic at the branches at the end of a month when our customers go to pay their monthly instalments to the bank,” Chatchai said.

“We have spent a budget of only Bt59 million to set up our application and the QR Non Cash Payment system since 2017,” he said. “Development was by our own staff and we have set up the system to suit our customers’ demands. This is part of our move to become a digital service provider to our customers based on our main business of providing mortgage loans with the aim of helping Thai people to have their own homes.”

In line with this policy to help Thais become home owners, GHB also plans to cooperate with property developers to help lower-income people buy homes priced under Bt1 million and expects to boost the number of available housing units from the current 30,000 to 100,000 by next year.

Chatchai said the move was in keeping with government policy to help three groups of people in society to achieve home ownership. These groups comprise lower-income earners, the elderly, and young people who are getting married and starting to have their own families.

The bank will help them create a bank statement through its mobile deposit machines, of which there are 100 already in operation, with 200 scheduled to be available by the end of this month.

Prospective home-buyers will be able to make deposits from their income via the machines and have a mortgage loan approved, Chatchai said.

The bank will offer them a lower interest rate, with monthly instalments not exceeding Bt4,000 on a home valued at less than Bt1 million. People earning Bt25,000 a month or less qualify for the scheme.

At present, GHB is negotiating with property developers who are developing residential projects with homes priced lower than Bt1 million. Some 30,000 units combined have already been added to this programme. Up to 10,000 units are ready-to-stay residences; the other 20,000 units are undergoing construction and will be completed next year, Chatchai said. The bank also expects to find a further 70,000 units by the end of this year. This will help up to 100,000 families have homes under this programme within 2019, he said.

At the end of June, the bank had issued new mortgage loans worth Bt105.42 billion in total, up 53.67 per cent from the same period last year. They cover 85,263 new accounts, of which 51,482 were opened by lower- and middle-income people receiving mortgage loans for homes valued under Bt2 million. They will go towards the bank’s new mortgage loan target of Bt189 billion for the end of this year, a projected rise of 6 per cent from the same period of last year, Chatchai said.