“Our growth has been driven by the growing domestic market, especially from Chinese tourists who buy the products as souvenirs to take back home,” chief executive officer Itthipat Peeradechapan said yesterday.

The company’s profit leapt by 146.4 per cent to Bt185 million from the second quarter of last year.

In the first six months of this year, its sales climbed 41.5 per cent to Bt2.13 billion, while profit spurted 173.5 per cent to Bt345 million.

“The company has built brand recognition, together with regular marketing activities and the expansion of distribution channels. These resulted in the company’s sweep of 66 per cent of the market in the first half of this year, up from 62 per cent in the same period of last year,” he said.

The seaweed-snack market was worth Bt2.54 billion last year and continued growth is expected for this year.

The company is launching a Bt30-million sports marketing campaign to support the national soccer team when it competes in the 12-team final qualifying round for Asia’s representative to the World Cup.

The competition begins next month.

The company will encourage Thais to exercise more with “seaweed” steps and eat healthily.

The campaign is responding to the trend towards a healthy lifestyle where people choose healthy food for themselves.

Sports marketing will be the company’s priority strategy, along with entertainment marketing.

Taokaenoi has recently launched products such as “Big C Top” baked seaweed a la Taokaenoi, which offers a snack with low calories – perfect for those who are health-conscious and wish to look after their figure.

Seagle, a fried seaweed snack, has been well received by customers, the company says.

Excluding non-recurring items and the non-recurring revaluation contribution from the Sun International portfolio acquisition in the first quarter of last year, MINT’s net profit increased by 9 per cent in the first half of this year compared with a year earlier.

A company press release yesterday said the non-recurring items included a revaluation contribution from the Tivoli acquisition in the first quarter of this year and a fair-value adjustment of investment in the BreadTalk Group in Singapore in the second quarter.

Minor Hotels reported a net-profit increase of 73 per cent in the first half, reflecting its strong acquisition capabilities as well as the solid operational performance of its existing hotel and residential portfolios, MINT said. Minor Food reported a net-profit increase of 34 per cent in the first half and of 67 per cent in the second quarter.

These year-on-year increases were primarily a result of the strong performance of the Thailand and China hubs, a higher contribution from Minor DKL in Australia after Minor Food’s increase in shareholding from 50 per cent to 70 per cent last November 2015, and the fair-value adjustment of investment in BreadTalk Group upon the change of investment status from available-for-sale investment to investment in an associate.

Meanwhile, Minor Retail reported a year-on-year net profit decrease of 41 per cent in the first half, primarily due to the pre-opening expenses of two new brands, Brooks Brothers and Kojima Premium Denim, which were launched in the second quarter.

Compared with the first quarter of 2016, consolidated net profit decreased by Bt109 million, or 15.6 per cent, from Bt700 million, mainly because of a drop in revenue from conventional satellite services.

Chief executive officer Paiboon Panuwattanawong said the decrease in operating results over the past quarter, particularly from broadcast services, followed Thailand’s slowing economic growth.

However, Thaicom has planned for such circumstances by turning to overseas markets and customers in the Asean Economic Community and South Asia regions, which are both key markets for Thaicom.

Meanwhile Thaicom says it is developing new and innovative value-added services to expand business opportunities around the ability of its satellites to cover users anywhere.

Thaicom says it is continuing to strive for complete and sufficient network coverage while seeking new customers, expanding into international markets, and developing products and service innovations to meet consumer and business-sector needs.

The Thaicom 8 satellite was recently launched into orbit and is ready to provide added capacity to support the transition to high-definition and ultra-high-definition broadcasting as they become increasingly popular.

Thaicom says it is also leveraging satellite capabilities to drive mobility. Satellite signals now provide connectivity aboard the Thai battleship HTMS Chakri Naruebet, while third- and fourth-generation mobile backhaul over satellite provides mobile users with coverage anywhere and at any time under both normal and crisis conditions.

Thaicom’s Internet and media-services subsidiary, CS LoxInfo (CSL), saw declining revenue from its YellowPages media and advertising, voice info, and mobile-content services this past quarter, while the Internet Data Center (IDC) and ADSL for Condominium services continued to grow. The ADSL for Condominium service had 8,372 subscribers at the end of the second quarter, up 333.8 per cent from the same period of last year.

In Laos, Lao Telecommunications Co (LTC) saw continued growth in revenue, particularly from mobile data and Internet SIM services as well as equipment sales.

Chairman Suthikiati Chirathivat said yesterday that consolidated revenues for the second quarter rose 6.7 per cent to Bt4.77 billion from the same quarter last year.

The hotel business picked up by 4.4 per cent to Bt1.93 billion and the food business by 8.4 per cent to Bt221 million.

The mix from the hotel and food businesses was 40.5:59, compared with 41.4:58.6 for the second quarter of last year.

About 30 per cent of international arrivals were Chinese, representing a 13-per-cent increase in arrivals year on year.

European arrivals increased by 11 per cent, driven mainly by the 38-per-cent growth in tourists from Russia, which indicates the continuing recovery of this source market.

This positive tourism trend corresponds to the improvement in average achieved occupancy (OCC) for Centel’s hotel properties from 76 per cent to 78 per cent.

The achieved OCC for its Maldives hotels also moved up from 77 per cent to 82 |per cent, mainly because of higher bookings for the Centara Grand Island Resort and Spa.