Luxury furniture importer Chanintr Living is spending 180 million baht to add two new stores on Soi Thong Lor and Sukhumvit Soi 26, prompted by confidence of strong demand in the high-end housing segment.
Chief executive Chanintr Sirisant said the luxury residential market is not a fast-moving segment, but has seen robust growth during the past 3-5 years and will continue in the future.
"Customers in the high-end segment are more aware of global furniture brands. They are willing to invest in home decorations," he said.
For the company's products, the home decoration budget for a bare-shell unit starts from 100,000-150,000 baht per square metre, and ranges between 30,000-50,000 baht per sq m for a fitted unit.
The largest expenditure the company received was 50 million baht for a show unit penthouse sized 500-800 sq m and priced from 250 million baht a unit.
"High-end condo developers tend to do smaller units, or only 100-150 sq m, but customers in this [luxury] segment want 300 sq m. The customer eventually bought two units and combined them," said Mr Chanintr.
Last year, the high-end furniture market was valued at 4.3 billion baht, with Chanintr the market leader holding 27.9% market share, worth 1.2 billion. The company's sales grew 15-20% from 1 billion baht in 2017 and 920 million in 2016.
This year Chanintr expects 1.35 billion baht in sales, and 1.5 billion in 2020. Of total sales, more than 90% is from furniture, with the rest from design consultancy.
The company expects the best-seller in 2019-20 to be Bulthup, a German kitchen brand, which the company is delivering to luxury condo projects completed this year including Four Seasons Private Residences and the Residences at Mandarin Oriental, he said.
Other top sellers among the 30 brands Chanintr imports are American brands Herman Miller, Baker and Bernhardt, and Italian maker Minotti.
"Our sales growth during 25 years is in line with demand. We started with living room furniture and expanded to other rooms like the kitchen and work rooms," said Mr Chanintr. "Co-working space is a new segment we will tap into."
In the next two months the company plans to open two new retail stores, each more than 1,000 sq m. One is Chanintr Home on Soi Thong Lor for home and lifestyle furniture and decoration items, as well as the company's first cafe.
The other is Chanintr Office on Sukhumvit Soi 26 to tap into the grade-A office market. The company has showrooms in four locations -- Siam Paragon, Noble Solo Thong Lo, GPF Wireless Road and Sukhumvit Soi 61.
Mr Chanintr said the overall furniture market will continue growing with an estimated value totalling 44 billion baht in 2019, up 10% from last year.