asmag.com had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Ken Arimura, the Managing Director of OPTEX (Thailand) Co. LTD. and hear his thoughts about the market.
Thailand is one of the 80 countries worldwide where OPTEX sensing solutions are available. Although OPTEX has been in the Thai market since 2016, in 2023 the company HQ decided to make
Thailand its ASEAN sales hub. Today the Thailand branch is the key revenue driver for the company in ASEAN and manages everything from sales, through inventory and tech support for Thailand and all the ASEAN countries.
After the COVID slowdown, OPTEX is optimistic that 2023 will see the market recover and demand increase as projects resume operations. asmag.com had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Ken Arimura, the Managing Director of OPTEX (Thailand) Co. LTD. and hear his thoughts about the market.
OPTEX business in Thailand
OPTEX’s core value proposition is its optical sensing technology. The company offers both security and industrial automation solutions that are based on its sensing technology.
Out of a global revenue of US$420 million, around $180 million comes from its core sensing solution business like security, automatic doors, people counting, IoT sensors, etc. In Thailand, the company is involved in 3 major verticals: residential buildings (gated communities and condominiums), office and industrial buildings and critical infrastructure. Specifically, in the Thai market, OPTEX is very strong in automatic door sensors, where it holds close to 50 percent of the market share.
Market perceptions and preferences
“I feel that digital acceptance in ASEAN and especially in Thailand leapfrogs the traditional technologies,” said Arimura. “This opens a door to offer more advanced technology. Many businesses in Thailand have an increasing labor cost burden, and they require technology solutions to help automate and reduce the cost of security guards. We recommend
hybrid PIDS that can help replace people with systems,” he explained.
However, Arimura also notes that Thailand is a very CCTV-oriented market. “Since CCTV became mature before burglar alarms, alarms are now supplementing CCTV. If you ask Thai people what is security, everyone will answer ‘CCTV.’ Security systems like burglar alarms are not as common or mature as in the U.S. or European security advanced markets, but the Thai end users is open to try new technology and take up new solutions thanks to its nature of digital acceptance,” he said.
Key verticals
OPTEX is involved in several vertical markets in Thailand. “The residential vertical in Thailand is a big market and we expect it to have big growth. Despite a lot of competition with Chinese brands, there are market sectors like gated communities and condominiums that are more acceptable to high performance solution,” said Arimura. OPTEX introduced its control panels and wireless solution (Genio Series) for individual home and gated communities in Thailand.
In factories and warehouses the company offers photo beam sensor for perimeter protection. “This solution is especially popular with foreign companies working in Thailand,” said Arimura and mentioned it is also used in securing electrical substations and solar farms (to help prevent copper theft).
Arimura points to data centers as a growing vertical in the Thai and ASEAN markets. “We consider data centers an important vertical for OPTEX, we witnessed a good increase in data centers in the last few years and predict good increase in the future. The economy is digitizing and data centers are growing. Because of its importance and the security level required, more and more data centers choose physical sensor solution like our LiDAR sensors (Redscan Pro) with VMS for both indoor and outdoor data center security.”
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