Taiwan Takisawa Technology Co (台灣瀧澤), one of the nation’s largest designers and assemblers of CNC (computer numerical control) lathes and machining centers, said it plans to enhance its marketing and sales channels overseas, despite maintaining a cautious outlook for the quarter.
The company plans to open a subsidiary in the US by next month and an exhibition center in Shanghai by May, Takisawa general manager Winston Tai (戴雲錦) said on the sidelines of the Taipei International Machine Tool Show, which opened on Tuesday at the Taipei World Trade Center.
“We used to depend on our agents to sell our products overseas, but now we plan to send our own people to China and the US,” which represent the largest and the second-largest machine tool markets for Taiwanese firms, Tai told the Taipei Times in an interview on Tuesday.
If the strategy is successful, the company would consider sending employees to Europe and Southeast Asia as well, he said.
Takisawa is an original equipment manufacturer for Japanese companies, which account for the largest share of its revenue.
The company ships its products mostly to China, Europe and the US. It has three factories, two in Taoyuan and one in Shanghai.
In January, the firm reported a 33.9 percent year-on-year revenue loss on a consolidated basis at NT$157.85 million (US$5.3 million), but forecast sales would rise by the end of the second quarter, with no major increase in orders expected.
Meanwhile, Kao Fong Machinery Co (高鋒), another leading designer and assembler of machining centers, bucked the economic downtrend by reporting a 31.78 percent year-on-year increase in consolidated revenue for January to NT$132.39 million, which the company attributed to improvements in its global sales channels.
“We have established stores in China instead of relying on agents. In addition, we have diversified our export destinations to China, Southeast Asia, South Korea and India,” a Kao Fong official, who declined to be named, said by telephone.
The nation’s machine tool exports dropped 13.3 percent to US$287.27 million in January from a year earlier, but annual exports are likely to increase by between 5 percent and 10 percent from last year’s US$4.23 billion, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 機器工業同業公會) said.
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