More than half of the service providers (SPs) based in Malaysia that are affiliated with Recommend.my, a home and local services platform in Malaysia, have successfully maintained or even increased their revenue in 2021 when compared to 2020.
“In 2021, the changing trend of home and local services have impacted the industry greatly. However, through our survey we have found out that 57.5 percent of our service providers managed to maintain or even increase their revenue in 2021 compared to 2020. This indicates that 2021 was a year of recovery for our service providers,” says Jes Min Lua, Co-Founder, and CEO of Recommend Group.
In a statement, it said that breaking it down further, 20.8 percent of survey respondents have successfully adapted and increased their revenue by up to 25 percent and 9.2 percent of survey respondents have increased their revenue by 25-50 percent. On the other hand, it is important to consider that over 17.5 percent of SMEs surveyed felt a decline in revenue by over 50 percent.
It said that the home improvement sector has been hit harder by the pandemic, especially due to rising material costs and the reluctance of customers to spend more money. Home maintenance vendors however have seen an uptick in average revenue as they are specialised in repairs and simple installations.
It said that these include electricians, handymen, aircon servicing technicians, and plumbers. One of the contributing factors is that many home maintenance professionals could continue operating during Movement Control Order (MCO) as long as it was for essential repairs such as water leaks and electrical blackouts.
“We expect the volume of home and local services projects to increase in 2022 as 60 percent of businesses are optimistic about recovery by the end of 2022. We are also taking steps to acquire more high-quality service professionals to meet the demand,” says Jes Min Lua, Co-Founder, and CEO of Recommend Group. “Recommend Group has already vetted over 10,000 companies and independent service professionals in Malaysia and is actively working with them to standardize service scope and prices, improve service quality, enable cashless payments, and provide strong service warranties and insurance protection.”
“Recommend Group has already vetted over 10,000 companies and independent service professionals in Malaysia and is actively working with them to standardize service scope and prices, improve service quality, enable cashless payments, and provide strong service warranties and insurance protection.”
The survey was conducted among 120 SMEs in the home and local services industry in Malaysia between 15 – 28 December 2021.
