“There is no other way to survive,” Hsu said.
Singtex has come a long way, from a small fabric maker to one of the major functional textile suppliers, competing with Formosa Taffeta Co (福懋興業) and Everest Textile Co (宏遠興業), while becoming a global leader in organic textile.
But Chen isn’t sitting on his laurels.
“After S.Cafe, anything is possible. Hot coffee, cold coffee, fabrics with cooling and warming properties, you name it,” he said, refusing to reveal what project is in the pipeline.
Singtex’s clients are spread across the globe: Europe accounts for 55 percent of its business, the US 40 percent, Japan 4 percent and the rest of the world 1 percent.
The global financial crisis may have caused “obvious declines in the US market,” Chen said, but Singtex’s business is balanced out by “small pickups across Europe.”
Moreover, as the company deals exclusively with high-end sportswear brands such as Nike Inc, Adidas AG and Puma AG, as well as China’s Li-Ning Sports Goods Co (李寧) and Taiwan’s Giant Inc (巨大), the elite sports apparel business has rosy expectations about its future, he said.
RSS