Employing 25 staff, SPM has manufactured more than half a million sets of boardgames to date, with the majority of sales turnover coming from Sahibba, Saidina and congkak. It is estimated that about 250,000 Malaysians bought the company's products yearly.
On congkak, which is SPM's most-recent product, the 60-year-old Ting, who has 25 years of experience as an inventor, innovator and designer, said: "Few Malaysians know that congkak is a version of a 3,400-year-old Egyptian game called mancala played worldwide including in Europe, Japan, Africa and the Americas.
"Designed as a straight solid wooden block, this traditional game is facing extinction because of changing lifestyles, high labour costs and as a result of environmental issues. "SPM has re-designed the congkak board to make it more appealing to the younger generation through the use of high-tech toxic-free plastic, thus saving trees from being felled," said Ting. The multi-piece interlocking plastic congkak board comes with many new designs and functions such as multi-coloured sets, models for junior and senior players, ready-to-use sets for the family, do-it-yourself kits for the creative mind and foldable and portable units for travellers.
On SPM's marketing network, Ting said the company had six authorised agents who provided the channel to 1,500 retailers nationwide. "We sold about RM5 million worth of boardgames last year and are projecting sales of RM6.1 million this year. "The company's profit is derived from 50 per cent of the total sales," he said, adding that the company had exported its products to more than ten countries including Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sweden and the United States.
"The company stopped exporting completely a few years ago in view of the high timber cost and environmental issues. "It was for these reasons that we started to re-design our wooden congkak to plastic congkak," said Ting who was also - SPM's managing director.
The innovative effort was worthwhile as it later won the 1997 Malaysia Good Design Award from the Malaysian Design Council and the 1998 Ministry of International Trade and Industry's Industrial Excellence Award (design excellence category). "In the pipeline is a colourful foldable carom boardgame with seven variations including for junior and adult players, with and without leg models and in three different sizes - mini, standard and extra large.
"One of the innovative features of our carrom set is the friction-free surface which rids the need of applying talcum powder to smoothen the board's surface. "In addition, the board will be manufactured using toxic-free and recycleable plastic," added Ting.
For more information, call SPM at 03-5719272 or 03-5719242 or fax 03-5719277.
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