Business

Saturday May 2, 2009

Fumakilla makes inroads with aggressive ads and promos

By DAVID TAN


FUMAKILLA Malaysia Bhd will spend more on advertising and promotion (A&P) activities in the Indonesian market this year.

Group deputy chairman Brian Tan Guan Hooi tells StarBizWeek that Fumakilla would spend between RM20mil and RM30mil this year for A&P in the Asean region.

“We will spend more in Indonesia because over there, we can see very fast reactions to our advertising and promotion campaigns. Immediately after the advertising and promotion programmes, we can see the Fumakilla products registering a higher volume of sales,” he says.

Chan Kar Ming (left) and Brian Tan believes Fumakilla can compete with other international household insecticide brand names.

“Our spending in this area covers trade and special promotion offers, marketing campaigns, and advertisements,” he says.

Fumakilla is the market leader in Indonesia in mosquito coil products.

“Our aerosol products rank second in Indonesia,” he says, adding that the group has been in the Indonesian market since 2002.

Tan said over the next five years, Fumakilla would work on strengthening its presence in Indonesia.

“It is a very large country with over 200 million people. Someone who had actually measured the entire length of the country said that the distance from one end to the other is the same as the distance from London to Moscow,” he adds.

Tan says in Vietnam, Fumakilla enjoys a 25% growth in sales yearly.

Besides working on expanding its presence in Indonesia, Fumakilla would also try to enter the Philippine market and increase its presence in Pakistan, Tan said.

“We started exporting mosquito coil products to India four to five years ago. Now we are providing contract manufacturing services for one of the mosquito coil brand names in Pakistan,” he said.

Fumakilla presently has manufacturing facilities in Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Indonesia, and Penang, Malaysia.

Tan says Fumakilla competes with the other international household insecticide brand names in the region via research and development (R&D) activities and A&P programmes.

“We are the only insecticide product group in the country with an entomology centre in Prai, Penang. In the centre, established since 2000, we breed mosquitoes to help us develop more effective and safer insecticides. About 5% of our revenue is for R&D work,” he says.

The head of the centre was also a member of the World Health Organisation (WHO) committee who helped in the formulation of the health guidelines for insecticide products, says Tan.

He adds that R&D helps the group introduce new products into the market.

“Last year we released new products such as the cockroach bait and mosquito repellent lotion for the Malaysian market. We will export the products once they are registered with the insecticide boards of the countries,” he says.

Tan says Malaysia has always served as a platform for the group to test the sales of new products.

“This is why the cockroach bait and insect repellent lotion were not simultaneously introduced overseas last year.

“Malaysia is suitable as such a platform because the household consumption of insecticide products per capita in the country is the highest in the region.

“The pricing of insecticide products in Malaysia is also the highest in the region.

“The sales in Malaysia contribute about 50% of Fumakilla’s revenue,” he says.

In Malaysia, Tan says, the group covers over 90% of the distribution networks nationwide.

“Our insecticide products are found in the majority of supermarkets, hypermarkets, sundry shops, and medical halls,” he says.

On whether the group plans to set up more insecticide product manufacturing facilities overseas, Tan says it all depends on the country’s population size.

“If the size of the population justifies the setting up of a new plant, we would prefer doing so, as this would help the group to save on transportation and other logistic expenses,” he says.

Meanwhile, Fumakilla managing director and chief operating officer Chan Kar Ming says building up a brand name also involves participation in community programmes.

“For example, Fumakilla actively takes part in awareness programmes that highlight the spread of mosquito borne diseases in Asean countries.

“In Malaysia, Fumakilla educates communities on the dangers and prevention of Aedes mosquitoes and dengue fever.

“Dengue fever has been classified by WHO as the most neglected tropical illness,” Chan said.

Chan said the group had no plans to introduce new products this year.

“We will work on marketing aggressively the cockroach bait and mosquito repellent lotion products we launched last year,” he said.

Fumakilla Malaysia Bhd was incorporated in Malaysia, in December 1976 as a private limited company. It was subsequently converted into a public limited company in 1983.

Its principal activities are the manufacturing and sale of mosquito coils and other household insecticide products.

In Malaysia, it is a household name for an extensive range of household insecticide products that include mosquito coils, mosquito mats, insecticide aerosols, liquid and mat vaporisers and rodenticides.

Today, millions of consumers in Asia and also around the world use products from Fumakilla Malaysia.

The company’s humble beginnings started at its first manufacturing plant in Prai Industrial Estate, Penang. Later, more manufacturing plants were set up to meet the increasing demands of the Asean market.

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