Victory New Materials Ltd Co (勝悅新材料), which makes polymer shoe soles, yesterday said it aims to post 20 percent revenue growth this year as demand for the company’s new product increases.
The company expects shipments for this year to grow 13.5 percent to 37 million pairs of shoe soles from 32.6 million pairs last year.
The company started supplying its newest products to FILA Korea last month, with orders likely reaching between 20,000 pairs and 30,000 pairs this month, chief financial officer Peter Chen (陳圖炎) said.
“Customers will be able to see these products on the market in South Korea in the middle of this year,” Chen said.
Victory New Materials will start distributing shoe soles for FILA Korea’s children shoes between May and June, Chen said.
In addition, the company is likely to enter the supply chain of Puma SE by the end of the first half this year, he said.
The company has applied a new technology on orders for FILA Korea that allows injections of two materials into a mold at the same time to make one shoe sole.
Compared with traditional methods, the new process can save 70 percent of labor costs and reduce the manufacturing time to 30 minutes, from three to five days, Chen said, adding that shoe soles that have been made by the new method are stronger.
Gross margin for shoe soles manufactured by the method is 50 percent, while gross margin for shoe soles made by the traditional method is about 33 or 34 percent, Chen said.
Last year, the company posted revenues of NT$2.67 billion (US$88.07 million), up 26.29 percent from NT$2.11 billion a year ago, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.
Shipments increased 41.74 percent from 23 million pairs a year ago, Chen said.
Sales of the company’s newest products accounted for 15.15 percent of its revenue last year, up from 12.66 percent the previous year, the company said, adding that shipments of the new products were 3.7 million pairs last year.
Sales to China accounted for around 77 percent of the company’s sales last year, according to Chen.
Shares of the company rose 3.56 percent to NT$174.5 yesterday, outperforming the TAIEX, which was up 0.14 percent.
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