24-12-2004: ASDION MAIN MARTS - M'SIA, S'PORE, CHINA
By Tamimi Omar
Mesdaq Market bound back-office enterprise applications provider Asdion Bhd is planning to focus on Malaysia, Singapore and China as its core markets for the next few years as it sees great potential in these countries in the near term, says its managing director Yap Tai Tee.
"According to an IDC (International Data Corporation) report, the back-office enterprise applications market for the Asean and China markets for 2003 totalled US$949 million (RM3.606 billion) and is expected to increase at a compounded annual growth rate of 21.2% to reach US$2.4 billion in 2008," Yap tells FinancialDaily.
Asdion's main product, Asdion AccLink, integrates traditional accounting systems to various front-end business operations to achieve a complete front- and back-office solution.
Yap says there would be fast growth in Malaysia as small and medium enterprises were at a matured stage and ready to move from the conventional back-office management to a more computerised system to stay competitive.
"We also see that there is a large opportunity for China as the growth rate there would reach the same level in Malaysia soon. With the coming China (Olympic) games in 2008, we foresee the hospitality sector in China would adopt an electronic office system to stay competitive."
Yap says Asdion has so far invested RMB400,000 (RM183,658) for the past two years in Shanghai, and plans to set up a marketing office in Beijing by the second half of next year.
He says Asdion is on target to surpass its previous net profit for its financial year (FY) ended Dec 31, 2003 of RM801,000. For FY2002, the company recorded a net profit of RM628,000.
Asdion, which is tentatively scheduled to be listed on Jan 13, 2005, released its prospectus on Dec 23.
It is offering a public issue of 12 million shares of 10 sen each at 50 sen per share.
Of these, one million shares are for directors and employees, nine million shares for identified investors and the remaining two million for the investing public.It expects to raise RM6 million. Together with the rights issue, the total proceeds will total RM7.38 million.
The group is allocated RM1.2 million for capital expenditure, RM2.2 million for research and development, RM2.75 million for business expansion and the remaining R
Source: theedgedaily.com/cms/content.jsp?id=com.tms.cms.
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