Group-buying daily deals site MyDeal today announced that it is expanding its reach in Malaysia by launching dedicated portals covering cities Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, and Ipoh. The site, which operates in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, also has plans to move aggressively into more areas such as Kuantan, Miri, Langkawi and Brunei by the year’s end.

“We’d be very satisfied if 10% to 30% of the market in each of these new areas starts group buying and we get 100% of that,” said co-founder and CEO Jan Croeni. He also added that each city would have its own sales office to reach out to merchants, as well as provide general support.

MyDeal was launched in June 2010, and boasts a subscriber base of 400,000 with plans to double that amount by the end of 2011. The site, along with its sister site Deal.com.sg, is funded by investors that include Germany-based Rebate Networks, which recently sold its stake in Thailand-based Ensogo to LivingSocial. According to the press release, the site generates RM2 million (US$664,560) revenue per month from its estimated 800 to 900 merchants in Malaysia, and expects a spike once they expand to other cities.

“It took about three to six months in both Singapore and Malaysia before people started trusting this concept of group buying, and from then on the value of the items went higher and the total volume of vouchers increased,” said Croeni.

As to what it has over the local competition like Everyday.com.my and Groupon Malaysia (formerly GroupsMore), Croeni said that MyDeal has a strong subscriber base of those over-30 years old, who have a stronger spending power than the younger crowd that Groupon Malaysia attracts, for example. Besides, Croeni said that they negotiate the percentage cut shared with merchants, as opposed to the flat 50/50 split that Groupon offers (although Business Insider reports that it may be changing that strategy to favour the merchants).

“We feel that the 50-50 deal is not fair to merchants, so we give them more of the cut,” said Croeni, but declined to give a percentage figure, saying that it varies from merchant to merchant.

He added that MyDeal would be launching a mobile app within the next couple of months, but it’s not a primary focus at the moment. “Customers don’t buy many deals on mobile, and besides with a smartphone you can browse using a web browser,” he said.

Since July, MyDeal also became the first group-deal buying site to set up a customer relations hotline, which will be staffed by 30 personnel to deal with issues such as delays in coupon issuing, field queries about deal details, and resolve other customer complaints.