HappyIce ready to take its frozen vending machines to rest of S-E Asia

[KUALA LUMPUR] Daniel Ma, the founder and chief executive officer of Singapore-based ice cream vending machine manufacturer HappyIce, believes that, after being in the business for 10 years, the time is right to finally head abroad.

He has already identified five South-east Asia markets for expansion in the next 12 months – Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines.

“What’s encouraging for us is that, when we shared our expansion plans with one of our clients, he wanted to know when we could get started. This gave us the courage to go further and explore the untapped markets in the region,” he said.

According to figures from a report published by industry research firm The Insight Partners, the size of South-east Asia’s ice cream market is on pace to grow to US$9.5 billion in 2028, from US$7.2 billion in 2022. This represents a compound annual growth rate of about 4.8 per cent.

While it’s still early days, Ma said the aim is to place as many as 1,000 HappyIce vending machines in each of the five Asean markets over time.

He added the company is in the midst of concluding its latest round of Series A funding in the next couple of months. The money raised will be used mainly for the regional expansion.

“As the pain points in the ice cream industry are similar across different countries and regions, we are aiming to provide our vending machine solution to another 50 countries in the next five years,” said Ma.

Ma is an engineer who established HappyIce in 2013 as an ice cream importer and distributor in Singapore. The company imported ice cream from Taiwan and Malaysia, and served as a distributor for Shaomei Taiwan ice cream.

As they grew the network and marketed the products to more vendors, Ma and his colleagues sensed an opportunity in cold chain logistics, which is usually the biggest hurdle to overcome for most ice cream manufacturers.

While most people head to the convenience store or supermarket to buy ice cream, it’s a different situation when consumers want the frozen treats to be delivered to their doorstep – and at the right temperature without melting.

“We saw this as a big challenge in the last-mile delivery of cold chain logistics, especially for countries like Singapore that are near the equator and have a tropical climate,” he said.

Ma and his team soon diversified the business into providing ice cream vending machine solutions, covering everything from customisation and operations to maintenance.

Among HappyIce’s current clients are Unilever, Australian dairy company Bulla Dairy Foods and Indian ice cream brand Arun Icecreams. The company has over 500 ice cream vending machines in Singapore and is aiming to increase the number to 1,000 machines in the next 12 months.

Recently, HappyIce also collaborated with Grab, tapping the latter’s vast delivery and rider network to bring more ice cream to customers at home.

“Our vending machines can operate 24 hours a day and are energy-efficient. We also see there are similar and increasing needs for such solutions in other countries in the region, and that’s why we are keen to go abroad,” said Ma.