The Yontrakit Group said it would soon kick-start assembly lines of Volkswagen, SEAT and Skoda cars here to open up a new marketing opportunity for those European cars in Thailand. Yontrakit has already assembled Peugeot cars in the Kingdom. ‘Volkswagen group’ cars, which sit on the same body platform, would be included in the new assembling plan, said a Yontrakit director.

Among others to be made in Thailand include Volkswagen Passat, Volkswagen Golf, Volkswagen Bora, Volkswagen New Beetle, SEAT Toredo and Skoda, said Vithit Leenuttapong, a Yontrakit top executive. Vithit said while two other German giants - DaimlerChrysler and BMW - came to oversee car sales in Thailand, the Volkswagen group has left the business to their Thai partners.

New made-in-Thailand Volkswagen models would help increase sales; only 144 units of Volkswagen cars have been sold in the first 4 months this year compared to 939 units of Mercedes and 683 units of BMW over the same period; the newly established Volkswagen Leasing Service has helped increase sales of the car.

Korean electronic group LG plans to start producing air-conditioning units in Thailand early next year to tap into the lucrative 8 billion baht a year air-conditioning market. All the LG air-conditioning sets are currently made in Korea, said Vishnu Limvibool, chairman of LG Mit Electronics Co., a joint venture with Korea’s LG in Thailand.

LG this year introduced several models of air-conditioners to the Thai market with prices set to those made-in-Thailand so as to be competitive, said Vishnu. The new Thai facility was expected to bring out up to 200,000 air-conditioning units a year as the market continued to expand, Vishnu said.

LG Mit spent Bt.200 million to fund their on-going media driven sales promotion campaign. Unfavorable climatic changes brought combined sales in the market down 25%-30% last year, while sales were expected to increase 10% this year. Sales of small air-conditioning sets have constituted one-third of overall sales in the market.

PC Resource Co. and Network Thailand will continue their service despite an order last week from the Communications Authority of Thailand ordering the companies stop operating. But both PC Resource, a local PC maker which offers its customers lifetime free Internet access with each PC sale, and NT the operator, said they were doing nothing against Thai law.

CS Internet Co., a local Internet Service Provider that leased international bandwidth to Network Thailand, was told last week by CAT to cut off the service to NT claiming that the operation was against telecommunications laws. But a Network Thailand executive was quoted as saying that the free Internet service was like giving away free Internet starter kits to customers, and there was nothing wrong in that.

Rolf Richstrom, executive chairman of Network Thailand was said to have talked with CAT, demanding explanations; the company has won more than 1,100 clients since the sales campaign started on May 2; negotiations are underway with foreign ISPs to continue the free Internet connecting.

Berli Jucker Plc said it strongly believes that ABC alkaline batteries will make ground this year in Thailand and sales are expected to top 30 million baht, which would equal a 30% share of the market. The Indonesian-made dry cell battery was recently launched and is now available in leading discount stores.

According to Supachai Amnuaysakul, Berli Jucker’s Agfa Gaevert manager, the company will use their strengths in distribution and sales outlets to push ABC sales in Thailand. The alkaline battery would also be available as a premium in Agfa film packs at Agfa-sponsored color labs nationwide, Supachai said.

About 80% of the alkaline battery market has been controlled by only three brand names; low-price strategy will be the key to help grab more market share; Berli Jucker currently has more than 1,000 color labs, and more than 1,000 modern trade outlets in its sales and distribution network.

Belta Computer Co. plans to double their sales revenue to around Bt.1.2 billion this year. To increase sales, they have set up the Belta Distribution Co. with a registered capital of over Bt.10 million. The company, which is among the 5 largest computer makers in Thailand, said it aims to be among the three largest this year.

Pisit Prueksanusak, director of organization sales, said negotiations have been underway with computer makers in Iran, France and New Zealand for possible deals. Belta was ready to make tailor-made PCs for overseas orders, Pisit said. The Belta production facility on Urupong Road has been expanded to bring out 40,000-50,000 PCs a month, he said.

PC sales were projected to grow 35% this year, and sales of PCs for home-users were expected to lead the market.

Belta spent Bt.20 million to launch its new notebook computer in an IT exhibition fair later this month.

A Thai computer engineer working for Total Access Communication Plc has taken part in killing the I Love You virus which destroyed multimedia files on millions of PCs earlier this month. The anti-Love Bug program created by this engineer has been downloadable free of charge on several Thai-owned Websites including ieshow.com, sanook.com and bangkokbiznews.com.

The engineer, Narinnart Suksawas, who oversees the computer system for the country’s second largest hand phone operator, said he was forced to construct the bug killing program on May 5, the first day he read reports about Love Bug virus, because no software was available then. The software was created successfully on May 6 and it was put on those Websites for free downloads on the same day, he said.

More than 10,000 Internet surfers in Thailand had downloaded the anti-Love Bug software in three days from May 6 to May 9; major ISP, including KSC Internet, also download this Thai-invented software to fight against the I Love You virus.