Flooding is expected to be a wild card for farm truck maker Siam Kubota Corporation (SKC) as it aims to increase sales this year, but the firm still believes it will end 2022 with year-on-year revenue growth of 10% to 63 billion baht.
Phisanu Milintanush, SKC's vice-president and general manager for sales, marketing and service, attributes the projected increase to higher demand for farming machinery.
"The Thai agricultural sector remains strong, which boosts demand for the machines," he said.
However, there are fears floods could affect the company's sales after experts predicted Thailand may face severe flooding later this year.
Mr Phisanu said Thai farmers are concerned about flooding and, as a result, they are delaying new purchases of machines. They want to wait and see what the flooding situation will be.
"Flooding is a major factor that affects farmers' decision to buy the machines," he said.
"Now the company sees a signal that farmers have begun to delay the purchase for two months."
The value of the agricultural machinery industry stood at 70-80 billion baht last year.
During the first half of 2022, SKC sold a total of 20,000 units of its three key products: combine harvesters, tractors and excavators.
"SKC expects sales volume will be higher in the second half, but it all depends on the flood situation," said Mr Phisanu.
Last year, SKC recorded sales of 43,000 units of these three products in Thailand and overseas markets including Laos and Cambodia.
"We previously focused our marketing primarily on farmers, but now we've found that the number of non-farmers is increasing," said Mr Phisanu, referring to company employees and workers who change jobs to work in the agricultural sector.
"This will lead to steady expansion of the farming machinery market."
Non-farmers are becoming a new group of customers who buy the company's products.
SKC expects them to make up 35% of its customers.
