TWZ Confident to Hit Revenue Target As Trouble Subsides

By Ploy Chitsomboon, Bangkok Post, Thailand

Apr. 10–The SET-listed mobile-phone retailer TWZ Corporation Plc (TWZ) is optimistic about achieving its revenue target of 3.5 billion baht this year, now that political instability appears to be easing.

Despite economic uncertainties during the first quarter of this year, vice-president Mana Phongsanarakun said that earnings would be able to meet targets.

“We still have sound fundamentals with continual growth,” he said.

Mr Mana declined to release actual sales figures for the first quarter as they have not been reported yet to the Stock Exchange of Thailand. But he said the company’s handset unit sales were about 580,000 a month, up from 560,000 a month in the fourth quarter of last year.

“At the moment, we have no plans to revise the revenue target this year. It will be maintained at 3.5 billion baht and we will launch more new products to tap the market,” he said.

With the trend toward rising mobile-phone sales, Thai and foreign financial institutions had been showing a lot of interest in becoming TWZ’s trading and business partners, he said.

“We’ve been in talks with many groups, both domestic and foreign,” said Mr Mana. “But all in all, we’d like to focus more on a business partner, since we’ll be able to hold most benefits principally.”

TWZ’s share price has risen lately due to eased investor worries. However, it is still considered relatively low when compared with its fundamentals.

Brokerage research has a fairly conservative outlook based on the company’s fundamentals, with growth forecasts of between 10 percent and 20 percent. However, the company said the real picture showed between 30 percent and 40 percent growth over the past few years.

TWZ shares closed on Friday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at six baht, up 30 satang, in trade worth 84.75 million baht.

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