Thai Beverage (ThaiBev), the Singapore-listed Asean food and beverage company, is pledging to grow its business at full throttle and is committed to the group's 'Passion 2025' vision, a new five-year strategic plan.
Thapana Sirivadhanabhakdi, the company's chief executive, said ThaiBev has been operating amid the pandemic for almost two years and adapted its business to cope with Covid-19 via a variety of business strategies including cost reduction.
Thanks to such adjustment programmes, the company reported that its revenue grew by 1.1% in the 2020 fiscal year, ending Sept 30 this year, to 192.1 billion baht, with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization [Ebitda] increasing by 11.5% to 36.6 billion. The company was also able to maintain its 'largest Asean food and beverage company' status.
"Now, its time to push our operation ahead at the fullest speed in every aspect to continue our growth in Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand via our Passion 2025, and become the stable and sustainable total food and beverage company in Asean,'' Mr Thapana said.
Through its Passion 2025 vision, ThaiBev is determined to accelerate its business growth through five strategies.
They include: looking ahead and making the right and timely investment decisions in its brand, people and technology; building new axes of growth to fit with the market trend in the aspect of health and wellness, digital channel and emerging market.
Other strategies are unlocking the value of its assets and collaborating across product group, market and function for continuous improvement as well as expanding its business partners both in domestic and international markets.
"We are now familiar with Covid-19 and have learned to stay with it safely. We believe we will get stronger than ever,'' Mr Thapana said.
Prapakon Thongtheppairot, the company's executive vice-president in charge of spirit products, said the company will grow its spirits product group over the next five years by exploring marketing opportunities in the area of its white spirit apart from the Thai market because over 90% of sales came from domestic sales while the remaining 10% comes from the international market. Vietnam is in its business pipeline, he said.
For the domestic market, the firm will put greater focus on the promotion of its vodka and brandy products, which still have high potential to grow.
"The business of spirits still went well amid the pandemic. While some brands have felt the pinch from the state restriction measures, several brands are more commonly consumed at home. This resulted in better profit for the company in the first nine months of this year,'' Mr Prapakon said.
According to Mr Prapakon, SangSom rum had steady growth of over 13% from the previous fiscal year, while Blend 285 Signature grew 26%. Meridian Brandy had phenomenal growth of 39% during the same period. Kulov Vodka also grew and has now become the leading vodka brand in Thailand with a 32% market share.