Mah Sing to ride on digital transformation wave

PETALING JAYA: Mah Sing Group Bhd intends to ride on the digital transformation wave, in a move to create sustainable value.

The developer, which has allocated RM28mil for digitalisation efforts to be spent across 2017 to 2019, has implemented digital initiatives in every part of its property journey.

This entails sales and marketing, construction management and quality assurance, customer experience as well as engagement to property management.

To date, some RM6mil of the budget has been spent.

Speaking at a media briefing at Invest Malaysia 2019, Mah Sing executive director, group corporate and investment, Datuk Steven Ng said the initial stage of the digitalisation transformation was to cut down paper usage and enable easy access for its customers via the group’s My Mah Sing app.

“The app further enhances the customer experience and provides convenience to buyers, allowing them to book facilities, register guests and renovation contractors.

“Over the medium to long term, we are looking at data analytics. With data and artificial intelligence, we can then study our prospective buyers’ behaviour,” he said.

The group believes that it will be able to achieve its 2019 sales target of RM1.5bil, which is deemed to be a conservative guidance.

From this figure, an estimated 81% is for residential properties that are priced below RM700,000.

Mah Sing will launch RM2.2bil worth of properties this year, which include M Vertica in Cheras, M Arisa in Sentul, Southville City in KL South, Basil @ M Aruna in Rawang, Onyx Icon City in Petaling Jaya.

In Johor, the group is launching Hazel and Orchid in Meridin East, while in Penang, the projects to be launched are Pykett Project, Ferringhi Residence 2 and Southbay City.

Apart from that, the group is actively looking to grow its land bank, given its net cash position and cash and bank balances of RM1.22bil, as of Dec 31, 2018.

To date, Mah Sing has a remaining land bank of 2,105 acres.

Besides location and pricing, the land that the group is looking to acquire should also allow good payment terms to ensure that the new projects fit into its business model.

According to Ng, property demand is expected to persist, particularly for the right product, location and pricing.

“The completion of new residential houses is lagging behind household formation.

“From 2012 until 2017, the net increase in number of households amounts to an annual average of 213,000, while only 88,000 new houses were completed,” he said.

Mah Sing’s strategy of providing homes with luxury features at affordable rates has worked well, allowing the group to record sales above the billion ringgit mark for nine consecutive years.

Source : TheStar