Jarton Group, the manufacturer and system integrator of building solutions, plans to tap the home use market with target sales growth of 30% per year after spending five years and 10 million baht in smart home R&D.
Managing director T-Tutt Jungkankul said the company will this year launch 20 smart home products to penetrate the home use market, from a total of 40 items it developed during the past five years.
"All of our smart home products can be connected with the Jarton Home mobile app via WiFi," he said.
"The market is ready as there are rising trends for security systems, an ageing society and energy-efficient or green buildings."
Smart home products have potential for growth as they currently account for only 10% of the overall construction materials market, which totals more than 20 billion baht per year.
This month Jarton plans to introduce smart home products on online marketplaces including Jedi, Lazada and Shopee before going moving to sales at 50 branches of IT and home renovation stores like Copperwired and Boonthavorn in the fourth quarter.
The company plans to open a 200-square-metre experience centre at its headquarters on Rama III Road to showcase smart home solutions.
"We are not worried about a future influx of low-priced Chinese products as most of them have no Thai Industrial Standard certification," said Mr T-Tutt.
Jarton will also showcase some of its smart home products at show units for eight condo projects to be launched in the second half.
All of them will be in the upper-end segment with units priced more than 180,000 baht per square metre.
The top five items it will introduce to residential projects comprise a digital door lock, CCTV, an alarm system, smart sockets and a security doorbell with face recognition sensor.
The company is also developing two new products that can be controlled by mobile phone apps: a lawn mower and sous vide cooker, a cooking technique that uses precise temperature control to deliver consistent, restaurant-quality results.
Mr T-Tutt, 34, the second son of the family that has operated the business over the past decade, aims to build Jarton brand awareness among consumers after the group focused only on corporate clients and original equipment manufacturing throughout the past 40 years.
"A key challenge is how to open consumers' minds to use smart home solutions, as price is going to be the major barrier," he said.
"We will try to change their wants to needs."
Jarton targets around 100 million baht in sales of smart home products by the end of 2019, up 25% from last year, with growth of 30-40% annually from 2020, said Mr T-Tutt, formerly a financial institution audit officer at the Bank of Thailand.
Last year Jarton recorded less than 1 billion baht in overall sales, with growth of 5-7%.
One-third was from exports to 17 countries.
About 60% of domestic sales were from government agencies, mainly military and police units.
With registered capital of 50 million baht, Jarton plans to list on the Market of Alternative Investment by 2022.