Popular Holdings

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(18-08-2013, 06:58 PM)CY09 Wrote: For the assessment book market in Singapore, I would be interested to conduct a survey into how many assessment books each child has done/touched in their life. For me, I think I may have used about 30 books during my childhood days. One of my current tutee (pri 6) has a shelf of assessment/ help books. A very nice indicator of Popular's earnings as a major distributor of assessment books for the various publishers

One key difference as compared to my time as a school kid, is currently, Primary school text books are very thin and have very little contents. Someone told me it's got to do with MOE's theme on 'Teach Less, Learn More' initiatives. It's meant to push the kids to have more initiative to find out more, by themselves...

Text books alone are definitely not enough for kids to reference to do homework or take exams, unlike my time as a school kid... This inadvertently creates a demand for Tuition + Guidebooks + Assessment books. For the latter 2, this is where Popular Hldgs come in. If you have school going kids, you'd definitely like to have a Popular Bookstore nearby... cos' there're hardly any other alternatives...

Schools also drives the demand for Assessment books, with teachers (especially in Upper Primary) requiring their students to buy... I guess it's easier for them to use 3rd party materials rather than setting and preparing their own homeworks...
Luck & Fortune Favours those who are Prepared & Decisive when Opportunity Knocks
------------ 知己知彼 ,百战不殆 ;不知彼 ,不知己 ,每战必殆 ------------
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back in my time in primary and secondary school, the thing I hate the most is homework. assessment books, past year papers etc. Feel the knowledge is just stuffed into my brain without processing. I always dream of a world without those stuff. Think now the situation gets worse instead....
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(18-08-2013, 07:28 PM)freedom Wrote: back in my time in primary and secondary school, the thing I hate the most is homework. assessment books, past year papers etc. Feel the knowledge is just stuffed into my brain without processing. I always dream of a world without those stuff. Think now the situation gets worse instead....

My time lagi better... I only have happy memories of my Primary school days. No such thing as Assessment Books / Papers. Only have 10-Years Series in Sec 4 for past years' GCE 'O' Level papers and hardly do any, except for my favourite subject (Math).

Nowadays, the school system is so competitive, mostly driven by the school (in my case, as I don't send them for tuition). Especially from Upper Primary, I see my kids, loaded with Homework (incl. those from Assessment Books & Past Year papers), all given by their teachers plus a host of other "Learning" activities, extra Supplementary Classes, Math/Science/English Camps during hols,... Btw, it's not optional... The Science topics are so advanced, most things I only got to learn in Secondary school and some, I don't think I was ever taught. Thank goodness for the rich resources available from the internet, where I got to learn more about Leaf's characteristics such as stomata and how it functions during Transpiration, Respiration & Photosynthesis and also dependent on the condition of the plant's environment (light, water)... back when my kid was in P4 (?).. OMG! Confused

I really hope MOE do a drastic overhaul of the system. They've been doing their studies for some time now, perhaps planning to change it to something like the Finn model?
Luck & Fortune Favours those who are Prepared & Decisive when Opportunity Knocks
------------ 知己知彼 ,百战不殆 ;不知彼 ,不知己 ,每战必殆 ------------
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I read this article, and it coincides with a cover story related to Barnes & Noble in last issue of The Edge. Since it might be related to Popular business model, I post the article here for discussion.

From the cover story, the message to take away was, printed books will stay, and people still enjoy being around books, holding them, turning their pages. When people buy tablets, they don't necessary use them to read. The numbers in the article were half iPad owners, and 25% of Kindle Fire owners didn't read a single e-book last year.

The following article provides more insight on the topic...

The end is nigh ... for printed books
A recent report from the Association of American Publishers signalled that the apparently inexorable growth in ebook sales has stalled. Having captured 24 per cent of the book market, the digital juggernaut ran out of puff and stopped. To the relief of booksellers and bibliophiles everywhere, it looks as if ebooks are going to take their place as just another format, alongside audiobooks, leaving plenty of room for printed books.

Almost from the moment ebook sales took off, the format recorded triple-digit annual growth rates in the United States. But last year, growth slowed to just 45 per cent. And just this month, it was reported that ebook sales in June were similar to sales for the same period in 2012: Looking very much like an abrupt halt.

Sales of ebook reader devices may be declining. And there is even evidence that some early adopters are putting their Kindle in the bottom drawer and returning to print.

For those of us who have enjoyed a lifetime of visual, tactile and olfactory pleasure from the printed page, any sign that printed books are going to survive this digital tsunami is welcome. But these trends and headlines bear some scrutiny.

BULLIED ONTO BANDWAGON

First, what caused this slowdown in ebook adoption? The short answer is that the market for ebooks — the present-day market — is saturated.

It should have been clear to us from the outset that there is a limit to the number of people who would actually want an ebook. For now, the “natural” market for ebooks includes a lot of early-adopter enthusiasts, extreme users (who read a book or two per week), travellers, professionals and scholars. It is likely that these natural users will continue to prefer digital, for obvious reasons.

But there is another group of users who could be described as normal people who were bullied into getting onto the ebook bandwagon by friends, family and the media. There are countless thousands of Kindles and Nooks in the hands of grandmothers and uncles who received them as well-meaning gifts. Millions of us succumbed to brute force marketing campaigns by booksellers with everything to lose. Having tried the ebook experience, some are now drifting back to print. The novelty just wore off.

Many of us are buying both print and digital. If you see an interesting book in your local bookshop, you buy it. If you search for a book online, you download it. It is not a zero sum game, but it goes some way to explaining the slowdown in ebook market growth.

SOON, BETTER THAN PAPER

Notwithstanding this current hiatus, there are three key drivers that determine the destiny of any market: Innovation, price and demography. What happens next with ebooks will be a function of these three things.

By “innovation”, I don’t mean “enhanced ebooks”. A lot of heat is being generated these days about adding cool things to books to make them more appealing. Video and audio are tops. Links to external resources, functional mathematical formulae, in-book collaboration … There is probably value in all that, but the more of it there is, the less clear it is that the object you are enhancing is still a book.

The innovation I look forward to is not so much about added functionality as about elegant simplicity. Today’s ebooks are still a slightly awkward simulacrum of a print book. You cannot just flip through an ebook, back and forth, the way you can with paper. Even turning pages, after all the practice I have had, is still a bit clumsy.

Writing margin notes requires a keyboard of some kind. The list is long. But with time, and through the incremental efforts of thousands of designers and developers, all these things will resolve.

There will come a time, quietly, when the experience of reading and managing your ebooks will actually surpass that of paper.

The second driver of ebook adoption is demography. While the natural market for ebooks sits at about 24 per cent of the total book market today, the relentless march of generations will have its way.

My Gen-X children and their friends already get 85 per cent of their news and information online. My grandchildren are digital natives. There is no doubt that, by the time they enter consumer mainstream, they will prefer digital over paper. And that time is not far off.

PRICE: THE POINT OF COLLAPSE FOR PRINTED BOOKS?

Finally, price. The low-price channel always wins.

The massive downward price pressure in recent years has been a boon for consumers. More importantly, all that pressure simply accelerated a process that was inevitable.

It is true that the capital costs incurred by publishers and booksellers in re-tooling for the digital age are considerable. But, having built the infrastructure, the unit cost of production per ebook sold is tumbling, and ebooks have the capacity to just keep getting cheaper in coming years. Consumer expectations and the natural competition between publishers will continue to drive ebook prices lower.

The widening price gap between ebook and print editions, combined with improved usability and a generational growth in demand for digital books, will precipitate a moment of collapse for printed books. Improvements in book production and distribution services may delay things, but there will come a point where ever-smaller print runs will push the unit price of printed books upwards, beyond tolerance. Something will break.

It will no longer be economic for publishers to ship books or for booksellers to pay rent. When it happens it will happen quickly — over a year or two.

There will always be a market for printed books, just as there is still a market for vinyl records and fountain pens. But the real future, a golden future, for books and reading is digital. All things considered, I expect the print book market to collapse on Sept 12, 2020.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Stephen Cole founded eBooks.com in 1997, which has grown to be a leading independent ebook-store. He launched Ebook Library in 2004, which is now the premier ebook vendor for academic and research libraries around the world.

Mr Cole was a panellist on the topic, The Future of the Book, at the 2nd International Summit of the Book on Aug 16 in Singapore.

http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/end...nted-books
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Quote:There will always be a market for printed books, just as there is still a market for vinyl records and fountain pens. But the real future, a golden future, for books and reading is digital. All things considered, I expect the print book market to collapse on Sept 12, 2020.

Wah... doomsday prediction... with a precise date even! Let's call it '912'... Tongue

Fortunately, Popular Hldgs is not so much of a bookstore as the kind that's being described in this article (except for the Harris/Prologue/Borders concept stores, which forms only a tiny portion of their business) and being perceived by many here. Their niche, which I see as being targeted at school going kids (text books, assessment books, guide books, stationery,..), will likely last longer. It'd require a more concerted effort by MOE to go green ie. paperless for the school system before we see a more significant impact on their business in Singapore. In addition, a significant portion of their business is now coming from Malaysia (also HK) and the adverse impact of digitization may drag a bit longer, as pointed out in an earlier link from Popular website on the East Malaysia market... All assuming Popular Hldgs sits still and allow such paradigm shifts to lead them into extinction..Tongue
Luck & Fortune Favours those who are Prepared & Decisive when Opportunity Knocks
------------ 知己知彼 ,百战不殆 ;不知彼 ,不知己 ,每战必殆 ------------
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This is the same as saying printed newspaper is coming to an end, and that was mentioned at least more than 10years ago? Till now, printed newspaper is still around, not just here, but all over the world.

Personally, I prefer to read from paper, rather than from a screen. It is much easier to read.
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(19-08-2013, 10:27 PM)NTL Wrote: This is the same as saying printed newspaper is coming to an end, and that was mentioned at least more than 10years ago? Till now, printed newspaper is still around, not just here, but all over the world.

Personally, I prefer to read from paper, rather than from a screen. It is much easier to read.

The day will come when Newspapers (SPH), Mails (SingPost) & Books (Popular) reaches a point where the adoption of the digital versions overwhelms and makes the current paper approach become economically not viable due to the lack of the minimum critical mass.

In the worst (best, if you're vested) case, it may take half a generation before the digital generation becomes the majority and drives us, the dinosaurs (who continue to prefer reading print copies of newspapers/books and maybe even sending snail mails...) into extinction... Who knows, it may even happen earlier, if laws were to be introduced to drastically reduce all paper consumption or major shifts in policy eg. MOE moving into a full paperless system for schools... Some schools are already trying out the use of iPad / Galaxy Tab to store Text Books, access School WiFi to do online homework,....etc.

In the meantime, our SPH, SingPost & Popular are not waiting to become irrelevant. We can see SPH trying to stay relevant with their digital investments and having a Properties biz segment as insurance. For Singpost, we see their aggressive investments into Logistics business and turning their brick and mortar stores into something like a mama shop... can even buy sweets, insurance, collect passport or borrow money... As for Popular Hldgs, they do have their ePublishing & eLearning investments. In addition, what looks like (to me) a half hearted foray into Residential Properties....

So, the trick for us, as investors, is to stay vigilant. It's complacency that's gonna make us lose money.... but then again, the same goes for all other stocks.. Tongue
Luck & Fortune Favours those who are Prepared & Decisive when Opportunity Knocks
------------ 知己知彼 ,百战不殆 ;不知彼 ,不知己 ,每战必殆 ------------
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Hi All,

Did any value buddies attended Popular Holding AGM, if yes any interesting insight to share?Big Grin[/i]
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Key Points:
1) Sold so far 2 units at 8 Rajah.
2) Borders will launch by year end. No major change in book selling business. East Malaysia will be growth area.
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(23-08-2013, 09:38 AM)buddy Wrote: Key Points:
1) Sold so far 2 units at 8 Rajah.
2) Borders will launch by year end. No major change in book selling business. East Malaysia will be growth area.

Thank You! That confirms the URA data of 2 Units sold for 8Raja till Q1 (Jul). Looks like not going to have much impact on their Q1 financials... hopefully, still have net profits in this segment... No change in my plan to reduce whenever I need cash to switch to other stocks...

Interesting articles in their latest PopNews86 (Jul-Aug),

Operating brick and mortar bookstores
Capturing a bigger market share
Luck & Fortune Favours those who are Prepared & Decisive when Opportunity Knocks
------------ 知己知彼 ,百战不殆 ;不知彼 ,不知己 ,每战必殆 ------------
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