1. Business Overview

Courts PLC began expanding in the 1960s and had outlets in more than 9 countries.
Courts was first established in Singapore in 1974 and in Malaysia 13 years later. In the early 2000s we saw the bankruptcy of Courts PLC where subsidiaries were sold to investors to repay the debts. Courts Asia Limited (Courts) was later independently formed and it is now a leading retailer in Southeast Asia for Furniture, Electrical
Appliances and IT Products.
Courts Asia is predominantly understood to be a retailer of home appliances and IT products. But unlike normal retailers which earns a profit by simply selling technological products in its stores, Courts Asia’s income stream is markedly different as they focuses on selling furniture and providing consumer with other services as well. Base on the breakdown of sales of goods we can see that their main business focus are still on the electrical and IT products. And furniture is one of their product differentiator as compare to their competitors in alignment with their mission statement of making “aspirational home products easily affordable”
Chart 1 shows a breakdown of sales and goods.

Today, Courts Asia Ltd has operations in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Singapore remains the core market of focus as it has the highest contribution to the
Group’s net sales.

2. Industry analysis
List of Top 3 Companies by Market Share (Retail sales)

We see the list of electronics and appliances in Singapore ranked according to market share by retail sales. We see that the competition is stiff, with many other smaller firms eroding the market share. We can see that Courts is not among the top few within the electronics and appliance specialist retailers but among the “others” range instead. (table 3)
It is also interesting to note that despite their focus being in the electronic and it industry,