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orway-based paint producer Jotun Indonesia expects to see more than 15 percent growth in sales this year, its top executive has said.

Jotun Indonesia president director Eric Mallace said his company expected to reap around Rp 1.6 trillion (US$122.36 million) in sales this year, as compared to last year’s Rp 1.4 trillion.

Mallace said that this year’s target was higher than its 12 percent growth last year and that he banked his hopes partly on the company’s marketing ploy to revamp its outlets across the country.

Mallace said that so far it had revamped 130 of its 614 stores and expected to finish upgrading another 70, bring the total to 200, by the end of this year.

“Buyers now can choose the paint colors being displayed at Jotun’s upgraded shops,” said on Tuesday.

Jotun produces decorative paints, marine coatings, protective coatings and powder coatings for the Indonesian market. In addition to revamping its shops, Jotun Indonesia will be launching three new products this year: Two of them are decorative paints and one of them is a protective coating.

“Our sales have always been growing in the last 10 years. We didn’t see a reduction in sales during the economic slowdown last year since people were switching from building high-priced houses to building low-priced housing,” Mallace said, adding that the company would focus more on developing its decorative paints since there was still a lot of room to grow in that market.

Being a market leader in the country in marine coatings, protective coatings and powder coatings, Jotun’s decorative paints, which accounted for 40 percent of its total sales last year, currently ranked fourth in the decorative paint segment.

“We want to see Jotun’s decorative paints reach the top position in the country’s market,” Mallace told reporters.

Mallace said Jotun saw positive signals in sales of its decorative paints in the first three months this year, saying that the growth was now more than 20 percent over last year.

As for protective coatings and marine coatings, the sales were rather flat, while the sales of powder coatings had slightly increased.

Jotun Indonesia has two factories: in Cikarang in West Java and Tangerang, Banten. The Cikarang factory, built in 2012, has a capacity to produce 45 million liters of liquid paint annually, while the Tangerang factory, built in 1994, can produce 4,000 tons of powder coatings.

Jotun plans to expand its Cikarang plant in 2018 to increase its capacity to 60 million liters.

So far, Mallace said, the company had invested a total of $70 million since 2005 to build a new factory and do some renovation work and expansions on the existing factories. (vny)