GS Home Shopping to launch Malaysia network

A screen shot of a home-shopping program being aired by a joint venture between GS Home Shopping and Astro Malaysia Holdings. The company will officially launch its home-shopping network on Dec.4 in Malaysia. Provided by the company

GS Home Shopping will jointly launch its home-shopping network in Malaysia with Astro Malaysia Holdings on Dec. 4.

The channel, called Go Shop, will air around the clock and will reach four million Malaysian households.

The move is part of GS’s strategy to bolster its presence in Southeast Asia. The company said that 65 percent of the products sold via the TV channel will come from Korea. Except for home appliances, the company said, the majority of products are made by small and medium enterprises.

Malaysia is GS Home Shopping’s seventh overseas market after China, India, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and Turkey. Korean-made items account for more than 70 percent of products sold on the channels in Thailand and Indonesia.

“A number of SMEs contact us to have their products on overseas home shopping channels,” said Song Sang-yeol, a team manager at Astro GS Shop. “We are also looking to find competitive SMEs so that they can have an opportunity to export their products and widen their customer base.”

The network will sell diverse products including frying pans, no-spill food containers, bicycles and air cushion makeup.

GS Group’s overseas sales last year were 38 trillion won ($35 billion), accounting for 58 percent of its total sales. Sales from Southeast Asia made up 15 percent of the total, or 10 trillion won.

BY PARK EUN-JEE [ejpark@joongang.co.kr]