M.J. International Co Ltd (美喆) plans to triple or quadruple its production capacity in the second half of this year to meet growing demand for luxury vinyl tile (LVT) and stone plastic composite (SPC) floorings.
“We expect to add four production lines to the two lines already at our factories in Dongguan, China, in September,” James Yang (楊儒霖) told a media gathering in Taipei on Monday.
The company is having difficulty keeping up with the demand for SPC floorings, Yang said, adding that even after utilizing its production lines in Dongguan at 100 percent over the past six months, the company’s production schedule is still full for the next three months.
SPC floorings, which have a higher margin than other products, made up 5.3 percent of first-quarter sales, while LVT floorings accounted for most of the rest.
“An increase in sales of SPC floorings will not lower our sales of LVT floorings, as SPC floorings are intended to replace composite wood floorings in the market and ease consumer concerns over formaldehyde,” Yang said.
SPC floorings are environmentally friendly, toxic-free and more durable, and the prices are less than half those of composite wood floorings, at about NT$3,000 per ping (3.31m2), Yang said.
The company started selling floorings with hexagonal patterns in the first quarter and expects higher-margin SPC and hexagonal floorings to contribute more than 6 percent of sales in the second half of this year, it said.
With the high utilization rate, modest foreign-exchange gains and stable prices for raw materials, the company’s gross margin in the second half of this year is expected to surpass the 26.51 percent seen in the first quarter, analysts said, forecasting that the company’s cumulative sales split will be 45-55 this year.
M.J. International reported that revenue for last month increased 29.11 percent year-on-year to NT$310.68 million (US$9.96 million), with cumulative sales for the first six months of the year soaring 25.14 percent to NT$1.78 billion.
Sales in the US fell to less than 14 percent of total sales in the first half of this year from 21 percent in the same period last year, due to Washington’s 25 percent tariffs on Chinese floorings, Yang said.
However, the company is encouraged by growing markets in Europe and Canada, as well as the growth potential in China, he said.
In Taiwan, most McDonald’s outlets have been replacing their old tile floorings with the company’s LVT flooring, creating steady sales growth in the coming years, Yang added.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
RSS