PlayPark

Mar 7, 2023

0 From left Mr Kittipong, CEO of Kubplay Entertainment, Mr Pramoth, and Mr Quach Dong Quang, CEO of Playpark, announce Asiasoft's aim of becoming a digital tech firm. Asiasoft Plc, the SET-listed game publisher and service provider, aims to take a huge leap and become a digital company under the company's new name, 'Asphere'. The move is aimed at tapping new growth opportunities in marketing technology, the metaverse trend and tokenisation through the company's investment of over 1.2 billion baht this year. It is also targeting the company's new businesses contributing half of total revenue over the long term. "After operating for over two decades as a Southeast Asian game provider, we are transforming into a digital technology firm and a more innovative business," Pramoth Sudjitporn, the company's chairman and chief executive, said yesterday. The company has successfully expanded in Southeast Asia with overseas revenue accounting for 70% of total revenue and the remaining 30% coming from the domestic market. In order to reflect its new direction, it resolved to seek approval from its shareholders to change the company's name to Asphere with a new logo but the same stock symbol (AS). These changes are expected to be finished by May. The company has prepared for the transformation since last year by reorganising businesses into four core units -- online games, blockchain and innovation technologies, media and marketing, and venture capital. In 2023, it aims to invest over 1.2 billion baht, of which 1 billion baht will be poured into new businesses, while the remaining 200 million will be spent on online games. The company has set a revenue growth target of 30% in line with the business expansion. In 2022, it posted total revenue of 1.57 billion baht and net profit of 268.6 million baht. The company's revenue and profit decreased by 15.4% and 44 %, respectively, from the previous year, primarily due to the global economic slowdown and the adjustment of the gaming industry's base after the Covid-19 situation eased. Kittipong Prucksa-aroon, chief executive of Kubplay Entertainment, a joint venture between AS with Bitkub Group, said this year, the business development of the Astronize platform, which is a Hybrid Web 3.0 game platform, has shown progress. Kubplay also appointed an initial coin offering (ICO) portal consultant at the end of last year and is preparing documents to apply for permission to offer utility tokens via the ICO for use within Astronize. The company expects to launch the ICO in the second half, along with a plan to launch two games immediately after the ICO. The company expects to have at least 500,000 users on the Astronize platform immediately after the launch of the two games before increasing to more than 1 million users within one year. Mr Pramoth said the AS venture capital group plans to invest in Buzzebees, a leading customer relationship management platform provider in Thailand. The firm has considered investing 1 billion baht in Buzzeebees, to take the place of Sabuy Technology. Sabuy currently holds a 30% stake in Buzzebees and a 15% stake in AS. Buzzebees, which has 100 million users, will pave the way for AS to access marketing technology, which is the future of growth and enables synergy to increase AS's reveunue, he said. 0