Sanyang aims to recapture its old glory

Sanyang Industry Co (三陽工業), a Taiwanese automaker, expects innovation and cooperation with its foreign partners to help it improve its domestic ranking over the next four years, the head of the Taoyuan-based company said yesterday.

The company, which assembles and distributes cars for Hyundai Motor Co of South Korea, hopes to return to its former position as the nation's third largest automaker in 2007, company chairman Huang Shi-hui (黃世惠) told reporters at a ceremony celebrating the company's 50th anniversary in Taipei.

With growing profit at its motorbike units in Taiwan and Vietnam, "We also hope to become one of the world's top ten motorbike companies in 2007," Huang said.

Sanyang, the second-biggest foreign motorbike maker in Vietnam, is also applying for government approval to invest in the component parts business in the China. Collectively, the company expects to reach profits of NT$2.5 billion on revenue of NT$50 billion in 2007, Huang said.

To achieve its goal, Sanyang said it would strengthen its branding, marketing and research and development capabilities as well as further boost its partnership with Hyundai.

The company started its partnership with Hyundai in March 2002, three months before severing a 41-year partnership with Japan's Honda Motor Co.

Currently, Sanyang is the nation's seventh-largest automaker, with 14,183 new cars registered between January and September this year, according to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

The number of locally made vehicles applying for license plates, an indicator of new vehicle sales, increased 20.7 percent to 371,488 units during the first nine months of the year, government statistics showed last week.

Kuozui Motors Ltd (國瑞汽車), which assembles cars for Toyota Motor Corp, led sales with 98,732 units, followed by China Motors Corp's (中華汽車) 73,980 units and Yulon Motor Corp's (裕隆汽車) 54,458 units. China Motors manufactures Mitsubishi models and Yulon Motor assembles Nissan vehicles.

"We enjoyed the collaboration with Hyundai ... which charged royalties of less than 2 percent, half of Honda's requirements for up to 5 percent," said Sanyang's president Huang Kuan-wu (黃光武).

The company expected to generate pre-tax income of NT$1.5 billion on consolidated revenue of NT$30 billion this year.

Sanyang created NT$1.1 billion worth of pre-tax income in the first half of this year, with most of that coming from the lucrative motorcycle business and return on overseas investment in countries like Vietnam and China. Its automobile business remained in the red.