Noble anticipates Chinese buyer market fully recovering in Q3

SET-listed Noble Development plans to launch 10 new residential projects worth a combined 23.3 billion baht, aiming for 23 billion baht in presales with over a quarter of this generated overseas.

Thongchai Busrapan, first vice chairman and co-chief executive of Noble, said the company expects to achieve 6.5 billion baht in sales from overseas markets, accounting for 28% of the target for this year. Of this amount, 4 billion baht would be from residential units.

"The Chinese buyer market will fully recover in the third quarter this year after China reopened early this month," he said. "Many wealthy Chinese want to buy a second home overseas after experiencing strict lockdowns."

He said half of the 4-billion-baht overseas presales target would be generated by Chinese buyers. This was almost three times the 700 million baht recorded last year.

The remaining 2 billion baht would come from new markets including Myanmar, Singapore and Malaysia.

Noble also expected to receive 1 billion baht in sales of commercial properties from overseas investors.

One of them would be a 5,000-square-metre retail space valued at 500 million baht at the company's shopping mall near Ku Kot BTS station. It would ink the deal with a Taiwanese investor in the first quarter this year and complete the transfer by the end of the year.

Last year, Noble posted 2.82 billion baht in sales from overseas markets, up from 2.3 billion baht in 2021 and 1.76 billion baht in 2020. This was still below the 3.5 billion baht recorded in 2019.

Frank Leung, co-chief executive, said the company had the largest market share in terms of the overseas buyers market last year with 60% by unit number. This represents the sale of 607 units. One of the key drivers was the one-price policy for Thai and foreign buyers.

"The Chinese buyer market, which accounted for 80-85% before the pandemic, dropped to only 25% last year due to China's lockdown," he said. "We got new markets such as Myanmar to replace them, which represented a quarter of overseas sales last year."

Noble plans to launch five single detached house projects worth 6.6 billion baht, three townhouse projects worth 4.6 billion baht and two condo projects worth 12.1 billion baht this year.

It expects to earn 23 billion baht in presales by the end of 2023, up from 17.4 billion baht in 2022 -- a new high record which grew by 117% from 8 billion baht in 2021.

At present, Noble has a sales backlog of 19 billion baht and expects to have 15 billion in revenue by the end of the year.