Challenger Technologies

[Bibi]

The retail industry in Singapore is challenging......High rental costs, high labour costs....

Why pay close to 3x NTA or 10-15PE for a challenging sector?

This is the same thinking I had 7 years ago and I rejected investing in OCK, Challenger and Neo Group. And I have missed 3 mulit baggers counters.

Not vested in all 3

[Behappyalways]

The population of Singapore 7 years ago was 'smaller' than present ^^

OCK was expanding then.....now kinda saturated(unless we are going to have another round of population increase)...I took a second look when they tried overseas expansion but they were not successful. So one way of maintaining/increasing profits was to increase selling price......curry puff price for example...

But then their share price keeps inching up......manipulated? I don't know......(Singapore stock market is getting harder to invest. There are too many counters being 'manipulated' while waiting for you to buy and hold)

The retail industry in Singapore is challenging......High rental costs, high labour costs....

Why pay close to 3x NTA or 10-15PE for a challenging sector?

This is the same thinking I had 7 years ago and I rejected investing in OCK, Challenger and Neo Group. And I have missed 3 mulit baggers counters.

Not vested in all 3

[ValueMaster]

Retail industry may be challenging but not all retail stocks are dogs, look at osim

[Behappyalways]

yes doing well due to overseas expansion which Challenger and OCK is kinda having difficulties......but the share price I beg to differ....'manipulated' share price again?

Retail industry may be challenging but not all retail stocks are dogs, look at osim

[specuvestor]

OK, If it is the Valore Store, than I agree. The Valore brand is different concept.

Hi cif,

I bought their powerbank and there is no mention of Challenger on their logo or anywhere on their powerbank.

One think to note is that they are following Apple's "Designed in California" concept. For Valore, it is imprinted "Designed in Singapore"

(vested)

I'm not sure I understand that the usual consumer will not be able to link Creative products and Creative Stores? How is this not telling the world that Valore is Challenger?

Back to my original question: I don't understand why they need to link Valore and Challenger together in the first place to fulfill their strategy. They should just have a Valore store and see how it goes, without collateral damage of branding with Challenger if things doesn't work out.

[ValueMaster]

there are also good local retail stocks like sheng shiong

[cif5000]

OK, If it is the Valore Store, than I agree. The Valore brand is different concept.

Hi cif,

I bought their powerbank and there is no mention of Challenger on their logo or anywhere on their powerbank.

One think to note is that they are following Apple's "Designed in California" concept. For Valore, it is imprinted "Designed in Singapore"

(vested)

I'm not sure I understand that the usual consumer will not be able to link Creative products and Creative Stores? How is this not telling the world that Valore is Challenger?

Back to my original question: I don't understand why they need to link Valore and Challenger together in the first place to fulfill their strategy. They should just have a Valore store and see how it goes, without collateral damage of branding with Challenger if things doesn't work out.

My theory:
Phase 1 is to allow consumers in SG to recognize Valore. To accelerate the process and incorporate some credibility to the products, the Valore store borrows the Challenger's name. They need Valore products to be selling well in SG first.

Phase 2 is to sell Valore products to the Asean countries via distributors. Only when Valore is selling well in SG will distributors be interested. When (and if) Valore goes overseas, consumers there won't see the Challenger mark on the products.

A question I had:
Why set up standalone Valore stores when Challenger stores are already selling the Valore products?

[GPD]

A question I had:
Why set up standalone Valore stores when Challenger stores are already selling the Valore products?

Creating brand awareness.

[yeokiwi]

A question I had:
Why set up standalone Valore stores when Challenger stores are already selling the Valore products?

I think they have no idea how to market Valore properly and so they just perform a mass roll out everywhere.

Besides Creative many years ago, Razer was setup by a Singaporean(lawyer somemore) and was very successful in producing high quality game accessories. So, even though the entire PC market is drown by cheapo mice, keyboards and controllers, Razer is able to command a premium for its products and carve out a niche market for themselves.

Can Valore do it? Not sure at this point.

But my personal thought is that the low end market for IT accessories is pretty competitive and unless your products look atas, like Razer, it is kind of hard to sell at a premium.

[thefarside]

A question I had:
Why set up standalone Valore stores when Challenger stores are already selling the Valore products?

1. Management did say they needed scale for economies around cost. One way to get to scale economies and at the same time do branding would be via standalone stores.

2. You can get cheap and high quality product via the ODM procurement route even from places like China but only if you make yourself the most tua kee customer of the supplier and they will kowtow and make sure everything is done properly for you

3. As they increase the amount of Valore products in the mix they may be coming into conflict at existing store formats with suppliers who are willing to extend good credit and give Challenger decent margins on their accessory products. Standalone Valore outlets reduces the space pressure at existing Challenger-branded stores and the potential for such conflicts.

My concerns are some of these accessories could be high margin but require high volumes and fast turn to generate sufficient profit due to their low ticket prices. And some related to hardware products that could obsolete in months rather than year or two, and may saturate easily.

Edit > or yeokiwi could be right - the simplest and explanation and the one that matters. But cannot be lah - this management is surely not that bad !