Alliance Laundry Systems (ALS), a commercial laundry equipment supplier, expects the number of overall commercial laundromats in Thailand in 2023 to increase by over 30% from the same period last year.
Sukree Kirai, the company's senior regional sales manager for Southeast Asia, said ALS forecasts 1,150 new laundromats to be opened in Thailand this year, of which 750 will use ALS products.
The total number of laundromats in the country will increase by more than 30% to 4,564 this year, said ALS. Of the total, 2,916 units will belong to ALS.
"Over the past five years, our business has seen significant growth in Asia-Pacific, particularly in Thailand, which is a big, successful country and is the largest market, contributing over 25% of the company's sales," said Benjamin Leo Dobbs, managing director of ALS for Asia-Pacific.
According to Mr Sukree, given Thailand's relatively high population, there is an opportunity to see the number of laundromats reach 10,000 countrywide.
ALS entered Thailand in 2017 and set up its factory in Chon Buri, producing 25,000 units per year.
Mr Sukree is confident the country's commercial laundry market will keep growing this year because of a surge in the number of laundromats, thanks to changing consumer behaviour and the recovery of the country's tourism sector. Both factors have raised demand and investment in commercial laundries and on-premises laundry services, particularly in the main tourism provinces.
The company has set its sales growth target at 20% from 1.1 billion baht last year to 1.32 billion baht this year. It will launch various strategies to boost sales including the launching of new products this year. This would include two innovative laundry appliances under the IPSO and Primus brands.
These two new products will enhance ALS's strength and support its market expansion in Thailand and other countries.
The company also plans to increase the production capacity of its plant in Chon Buri to 25,000 units per year in order to support the growing demand in the Asia-Pacific market.
It will expand the number of its laundromats in the country under its "1 district 1 laundromat" campaign.
The launch of this campaign reflects a rise in real demand for laundromats in the domestic market after people changed their behaviour post-pandemic and gained a better understanding of laundromat services.
The campaign is expected to result in ALS having at least one of its laundromats in every district in the country over the next five years.
In terms of market growth, this will come from the company's distributors, which will join hands with business-to-business partners in the property development business, focusing on gas stations or other businesses thereby boosting ALS's laundromat branches.
Mr Dobbs said that as well as Thailand, ALS is looking to expand its business in Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Laos and Cambodia this year. This would boost the firm's total revenue in Asia-Pacific to 4.8 billion baht this year, up from 4.4 billion in 2022.
ALS is headquartered in the US and is the global leader in commercial laundry equipment. It has production bases in the US, the Czech Republic and Thailand. It has provided its laundry solutions via over 1,000 distributors in over 140 countries globally and recorded total sales revenue of 47 billion baht in 2022.
