Bangkok--20 Feb--Siam Fibre-Cement The new non-asbestos formula even makes products tougher and stronger Siam Fibre-Cement Co., Ltd., the leading fibre-cement producer under ‘Elephant’ brand, today announced its re-branding strategy for synthetic wood products, grouping all synthetic wood substitute products made from fibre-cement into Elephant SmartWood brand. With its re-branding strategy and the new non-asbestos formula that makes product tougher and looks most alike to the real wood, the Elephant SmartWood is aimed to be customer’s top-of-minded synthetic wood and expected to increase sales growth by 15-20% by year end. Mr. Thongchai Sopon, Marketing Director of the Siam Fibre-Cement Co., Ltd., in SCG Building Materials, said, “The fibre-cement synthetic wood market last year grew up despite the slowdown economy. We optimistic that the market will continue to grow this year, depends on the consumers’ confidence in Thai economy. Elephant brand held 20% market shares in the synthetic wood market and recorded 8% sales growth in the fiscal 2007. The key factors that support the growth are the market trend of using non-wood substitute building materials made from fibre-cement instead of the real woods that are costly, and the impact of environmental conservation,” “After entering into the synthetic wood market for 7 years, we have continued to develop product’s quality as well as increase product lines to meet customers’ needs. The wide range of our synthetic wood products covers wood plank, fascia board, eaves liner, fence plank and skirt board. More product lines are planed to develop in the future,” added Mr.Thongchai, “To make it easy to call and avoid confusions, we decided to re-branded our products by grouping all synthetic wood products into the same group and call them Elephant SmarWood products,” All Elephant SmartWood products are produced under the company’s new formula that completely removed asbestos from the manufacturing process and replaced with cellulose. The non-asbestos formula makes products tougher, easier to curve up, strong, and can be used indoor and outdoor. Moreover, the Elephant SmartWood products’ appearance looks like the real wood the most, when compared with other brand in the market. “We can ensure customers there won’t be any fragile products that would cause damage during transportation and construction, or even the problem caused by product get shrink, which will affect the appearance of the building,” added Mr.Thongchai. Apart from the well-perceived of its quality products, Elephant brand is also the first and only manufacturer in Thailand that does not use asbestos in the manufacturing process of the roof tile, wall, board, and synthetic wood products. The company also employed technology and safety policy as European standard to ensure customers on both quality and safety. “We believe that our branding strategy and product’s quality will help promote Elephant SmartWood brand to be top-of-minded synthetic wood among customers and raise the market standard. We expect to see 15-20% sales growth by the year end.” added Mr. Thongchai. For more information please contact Tel 0-2586-3280