"Index Living Mall Public Company Limited (ILM)" showed the Company's strong mettle with a Q3/2019 profit of 166 million baht, equivalent to a 58-percent growth over the same period of the previous year as a result of the improved product mix, while the sales of "Younique Customized Furniture 4.0" brand was impressive and further supported by an increase in occupancy rate of rental spaces. In addition, cost control in sales and administration also improved, with the first nine months' performance of 455 million bath in net profit being an inspirational 48-percent jump. Plans are in place to continually expand more stores in Thailand and franchises internationally.

Miss Kridchanok Patamasatayasonthi, Managing Director of Index Living Mall Plc. (ILM), Thailand's leading integrated retailer of home furnishings, revealed that the Company's Q3/2019 performance was another quarter that made an impressive surge compared to that of the same period of the previous year due to more efficient and note-worthy profit-making ability following the strategic adjustment in the business to attune to the prevailing economic conditions. This success has resulted in the Company's net profit of 166 million baht in Q3/2019 compared to Q3/2018 net profit of 105 million baht. Operation revenue for Q3/2019 was 2,421 million baht, a 3-percent increase over Q3/2018 revenue of 2,347 million baht. The growth was the result of increased revenue from sale of goods and revenue from rental and rendering of services at new stores, and more significantly, from the exemplary growth of Younique Customized Furniture 4.0 brand. Featured significantly as well were online sales and sales growth in domestic projects. This is despite the economic climate that has yet to show clear recovery.

The significant increase in net profit stemmed in part from the product mix with the proportion of furniture sales achieving higher profit, while the merchandise under the Younique Customized Furniture 4.0 brand, which are customized furniture produced with advanced machinery, making higher gross profit margin than furniture in other segments and has been well received by consumers. Also notable were the launches of new product collections with higher profit margins.

At the same time, in Q3/2019, the Company has implemented the successful strategy to increase the efficiency to control selling, general & administrative (SG&A) expenses compared to the same period of the previous year. Furthermore, there was also a positive factor in the tax exemption privileges for investment promotion from the Board of Investment (BOI).

Miss Kridchanok added that the improved profit in the third quarter has driven the total performance picture for the first nine months of 2019 in the same positive direction with the accumulated net profit of 455 million baht, or a growth of 48 percent, over the same period of the previous year when 307 million baht of net profit was achieved. This positive result was due to factors such as the sales of Younique Customized Furniture 4.0 products with higher profit, the launches of new products with high margin as well as the privileges received from BOI promotion. The total 9-month revenue, meanwhile, stood at 7,242 million baht, which although was only slightly higher than from the same period of the previous year, the total sales online achieved phenomenal growth of above 160 percent over the same period of the previous year, and not to discount the exemplary growth of Younique Customized Furniture 4.0 and domestic projects sales.

"The Q3 performance was much better than expected despite the weak economic conditions, with increased initial profit and improved cost control. This has led to the considerable improvement in Q3 profit over the same period of the previous year," Miss Kridchanok said.

The Managing Director of Index Living Mall said further that following the fund raising in the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET), the Company's plan remained to continue searching for locations with high potential to expand new Index Living Mall stores as well as continuing to expand the branches of Younique Customized Furniture 4.0 within Index Living Mall stores. At the end of Q3/2019, 10 branches now offer customized furniture products through new innovative production technology combined with the built-in furniture concept.

As for WINNER store which will become a new store concept model of 'Company owned Company operated' (COCO), there is a plan to launch more stores in the future after the opening of the first store in Ratchaburi Province in August in a bid to expand the investment to second-tier cities. In addition, expansion of business abroad will continue in the form of franchise stores with a plan to open another branch in Vietnam after the first branch in Vietnam was launched on November 1st, 2019.