Smart home system from Pentamaster

by **Cals** Mon 15 Jun 2015, 01:24

Smart home system from Pentamaster

Saturday, 13 June 2015
By: DAVID TAN

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Intelligent system: Choon Bin says the outlook for the smart home market in Asia is good, particularly in China.

The company is offering its products to condo projects in Malaysia and Asia
PENTAMASTER Corp Bhd plans to provide intelligent home system for the property development industry leveraging on its smart automation technology.
Group executive chairman Chuah Choon Bin tells StarBizWeek that the group is exploring several high-end condominium projects in Malaysia and Asia to equip them with the group’s new intelligent home system.
He says that for the past 12 months the group has developed the software and hardware for controlling the telecommunication, lighting, air-conditioning, and security system of modern high rises.
“We leveraged on our expertise to design our own automation software and and hardware for test equipment to develop the intelligent home system,” he says.
“The group is now talking to ink the deal to install its smart home system for a Kuala Lumpur based high-rise project soon.”
Choon Bin says there are strong prospects in the smart home segment in Asia, particularly in China.
“The Building Services Research and Information Association (BSRIA) report says that in Asia, the smart building market is projected to grow from US$427bil (RM1,580bil) to US$1,036bil in 2020, creating vast opportunities for advance building technologies and services.
“China, for example, is building 36 smart cities, one of which is a 250 billion yuan low carbon model city in Tianjin.
“Songdo IDB and Fujisawa are two smart cities under development in South Korea and Japan.
“Singapore will become a smart nation by 2015 and Iskandar is the flagship smart city in Malaysia, while Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor will be the smart city of India,” he says.
The UK-based BSRIA is a test, instruments, and research and consultancy organisation, providing specialist services for the construction and building industry.
Choon Bin says smart cities generate the need for intelligent automation system software and hardware.
“Providers of intelligent automation system have now become partners with the governments initiating smart city projects,” Choon Bin says.
According to BSRIA, Asia will take 43% of the global construction market by 2020 and China, India, Japan and Indonesia will be the biggest in the region.
To tap into the intelligent home industry, the group has recently appointed Chuah Chong Ewe as the CEO of the group.
“Chong Ewe has been roped in to oversee the business in the intelligent home system as he has vast network with property developers in Malaysia and overseas,” Choon Bin says.
Chong Ewe was a former executive director in Seal Corp Bhd.
For the first five months of 2015, the orders secured for its test equipment used for the smart device, the light-emitting diode, and glove manufacturing industries has increased by about 10%.
“So far we have secured over RM40mil worth of test equipment, compared to about RM36mil achieved in the previous year corresponding period.
“The test equipment for the smart device segment makes up about 60% of the RM40mil order. We are receiving orders now for the third quarter, which is expected to be more than a year ago same period.
“This is because one of our customers is releasing a new product into the market that requires our tester to check the ICs used in the product,” Choon Bin says.
For 2015, the group is expecting a stronger performance from all its business segments compared to 2014.
“We also expect the bottomline to improve due to the weakened ringgit. The group imports about 20% of the raw material used in our products, so the higher cost of importation due to a weakened ringgit has minimal impact on us.
“We source some 80% of the raw materials locally,” Choon Bin says.
Choon Bin says the group expected to outsource about RM30mil of jobs to the local SMEs in Penang.
“These jobs are for vendors providing metal fabrication and wire harnessing services,” he says.
According to the Connecticut-based Gartner research house, despite strong growth of 12.9% in 2014, worldwide semiconductor capital spending is projected to only grow 0.8% in 2015, to US$65.7bil.
Capital equipment spending will increase 5.6% in 2015, down from 11.3% in the third quarter 2014 forecast, as the largest spenders adopt conservative investment strategies.
“Equipment spending outperformed capital spending in 2014 and will continue to do so in 2015, a situation that will reverse in 2016. Total capital spending will grow 0.8% in 2015, compared with 8.8% in our previous forecast,” says Bob Johnson, research vice president at Gartner.