ohh...so u do it for ur interest
8 month ROI,not bad....but i hate those CC which their pc sux to the max

Thanks badawi_rocks for creating this section.
This topic especially, might've been a joke if posted in Kopitiam, but its here to stay.
And it is not just me, I'm sure alot out there are interested in the cybercafe business despite topics of forex, stocks & whatsnot. This topic is for all discussions on cybercafes and issues that comes with it ~ the capitals, the maintenances, the cost, the laws & legals, the social impacts, the systems, profit & loss, and everything else that connects to it.

An Internet cafe (as refered to in wikipedia) or cybercafe is a place where one can use a computer with Internet access for a fee, usually per hour or minute; sometimes one can have unmetered access with a pass for a day or month, etc. It may or may not serve as a regular cafe as well, with food and drinks being served.

Taking China for example: according to "Survey of China Internet Café Industry" by the Ministry of Culture, in 2005: China has 110,000 Internet cafes, with more than 1,000,000 people working in this area, contributing 18,500,000,000 Yuan to China's GDP. More than 70% Internet café visitors are from 18 years old to 30. 90% are male, 65% unmarried, 54% hold college degree or higher. More than 70% visitors play computer games. 20% of China's Internet users go to InternetCafe.

Milestones:

* Before 1995. An Internet Café called 3C+T appeared in Shanghai, suspected as the first one in China (Chinese people are still looking for the first Internet Cafe). Price: 20 Yuan per hour
* 1995~1998. China's Internet Cafés reached a period of fast development. Playing unconnected games is the main purpose of café users. Price: 15~20 Yuan per hour
* 1998~2000. Booming era of Internet cafes. Competition became more and more fierce.
* 2000~2002. Booming era of Internet games. First Internet chain café occurred in 2001. Nine people were killed in an Internet café fire in Beijing in June, 2002. A new regulation was released by the state government, giving the Ministry of Culture full responsibility of licensing Internet cafes.
* After 2002, heavy censorships were imposed, including real name registration. At the end of 2004, more than 70,000 Internet cafes were closed in a nationwide campaign.

=======================================

But of course, that example is on China. What's to say on our local CCs?
I know there can be alot of questions and I also know in LYT, there are quite a handful of CC owners as well that are able to give the best recommended answers.

To start things off for everyone to answer, CC visitors and CC owners alike:

How does your neighborhood CC(s)/your most visited CC(s)/your own CC(s) goes fare in business?

Our local consumers are not diversed enough, mostly playing on DotA custom game. We also need to change the public perception in this field. For the newcomers, make sure you throughly did your homework before jump into this business, I dont like to hear another case just like my friend who thinks this business in good but in the end I have to save the day... everyday! Thats all I have to say, over and out.

First of all, as a previous owner of a cybercafe, I have a few advice for you.
Cybercafe was a good business, and I thought about that too. Noticed I used 'was' right? That's right. If your cybercafe is opened 2-5 years ago, you'll be making big bucks. So, you'll need to prepare for loses in these 2 years at least, meaning no profit for 2 years.
People tend to go established cybercafes at the moment. Although you can compete in price and service, you know you won't stay long.
If you haven't noticed, some big cybercafes are reducing their branches. Competition kills even the big guns, if of course you have the capital.
Location wise, it is that important that you have to make sure you pick the 'perfect' spot. Where are you from anyways?

yup, i gree with u..location is very important..well actually is the ultimate key..my family is operating one now at sek 7, shah alam..business is not bad but overheads are high so have to diversify to other things as well..

we do not offer gaming & as far as my concern, we chose the right concept coz most customers who came liked our concept..thanks to God, we have quite a number of repeat customers..

I was in Malaysia a few months back for other purposes, at the same time decided to check out potential opportunities and locations for such business.

Had a meeting with Inferno as well; their package are not bad, but kinda costly from my point of view due to the fact that myself (and lots more here, it is LYT anyway ) knows the actual costs for pc specs. However, despite the cost, the package itself comes with everything that one needs to quickly setup a cybercafe quickly, added with good monthly maintenances.

Due to that, it does boggles the mind, whether to go for packages (which is expensive) or going through the hard way but knowing every inch of the the way the entire business & technical system works.

Also, I hope there are some comments due to the increasing number of unwanted people that creates trouble by asking @ urging for protection money.

How does your neighborhood CC(s)/your most visited CC(s)/your own CC(s) goes fare in business?


imo... if u wanna keep ur customers, pls pls pls forgot abt the renovation(ok ok can edi) forgot abt how many branches u hav. upgrade n maintain ur pc. <alots of cc fail this>

the cc i always visit, (that area got many cc) which hardly to compete with more n more new opening cc :star:

*btw 1 thing funny, the same roll cc 's boss love to "stick" his face on the glass door n 'kap' c who business is better" this is lol me *

With the increased in overhead and dropping in the prices being charge, this business is no longer as easy as before.

However, they are still money to be made here.
Managing is CC is not as diffcult and as time consuming as other business. I consider CC is partially automated business where you can really minimised your time needed to take care of it.

I'm selling solution for cc to ease their workload (centralise hdd server), I seems like most of them are doing pretty ok. It's not as profitable as before, but still makes more than being employed & have more working flexibility.

Centralised hdd server might be good to lower the overhead, but you need a powerful one to reduce the lag too.
Overhead is high, and maintenance is also high. Just think of how fast the IT world is changing. For a cc to survive the market place, it's said that you'll need to upgrade once every 6 months.
Consider these points before you get into it.

I would suggest learn it the hard way and at least if something really screwed up, u know what is hppening rather than taking the packages, not knowing anything at all, when something screwed up, debugging the problem is hard.

currently i working in a cc...
the price of 1 set of PC is about RM3k..
inside the cc got 30pc and open 19hours/day...
in the 1 day can make total of RM400-500..

the cc already consider making money... and the location is quite good where it near a lot shop-office and low/mediam cost housing area...

Anyone go to Infinity to play?

In Ipoh their main office is 4 shops ...all fully with PCs..

In Penang branch also 4 shops....all fully with PCs.

I heard in Johor also got 1 branch.

The owner around 24-26 and driving the latest BMW5 series. Hehe.

means around 30pc full for around 8 hours.... but ur boss no pay gaming license isit, if u make 400-500 a day susah survive not to mention getting back the initial capital which is around mabe around 110k-120k?

does anybody know the procedure to open cc?i meant procedure to get the licence

Different municipals will have different rules.
But the basic is, you'll need to go to ROC and register your name.
After that, bring that to your municipal for them to check the area. Remember to feed them money, the higher council you go, the better.
Then, you'll need to get the police letter. Feed them money as well.
Get approval from Bomba, again feed money.
Then go back to municipal and feed the balance.
That's roughly the procedure for licence.

wah... that was too suck!

yea jordy got it all right lol..... some municipal requires u to deposit 10k for the license since they categorize it as 'entertainment license' and another 5k for yearly renewable license. after that prepare another 10k to feed them all. u dun feed, then alot of xcuses to deny ur license. Even after u feed, doesnt gurantee they dun come n kacau u. Their little boys will come n visit u often ask tis n that.... especially during cny, hari raya(OMG), xmas, deepavali and any freakin damn holidays. Of course not all places has the same prob, but ill say it quite normal.

This post has been edited by [gs]JackMin: Dec 29 2006, 09:10 AM

I knew it! Tsk tsk.
Bah, as much as I would love to bash on the issue, I guess that is just how it goes all these while.

Moving along, something interest me from one of the posts:

Why does making RM$400-$500 a day is mentioned as 'not enough' to cover back the initial capital invested, which lets say within RM$100k-RM$200k?

I won't start by asking whether the expenses are too costly, I'm sure every business have that, but I sure would like to hear examples within say, monthly expenses vs profit gain.

if you're talking to inferno, then i think you have not done sufficient research about the industry.

Inferno was mentioned as a reference for the earlier bolded sentence.
Which in fact is the same point of this thread; to gather information from those who know.

Seeing from your point of view, do share on what would be sufficient, that have not already been covered by most of the posts here