Helped by iPhone popularity, Multiplas plans new factory

TAIPEI, TAIWAN (Sept. 26, 2:50 p.m. ET) -- Seeing strong growth in the smartphone market, including from the Apple iPhone, Taiwanese molding machine manufacturer Multiplas Enginery Co. Ltd. plans to build a factory campus that will initially double its production.
The company, based in Taoyuan City, supplies equipment to the companies in mainland China and Taiwan that manufacture the iPhone.
Multiplas has benefited significantly from the success of that product, said David Chang, vice general manager.
“For Multiplas, this year has been extremely good,” Chang said in an interview at the company’s booth at Taipei Plas, held Sept. 21-25.
Chang said details of the expansion are still being worked out, but the company has bought 7½ acres of land in Taoyuan -- eight times larger than the land area of its current factory -- and plans to move into the first phase of the new facility in early 2014.
Investment in the factory ultimately could total US$45 million, Chang said.
The firm plans to add about 100 employees in the first phase of the expansion, on top of its existing workforce of 150.
While Taiwan’s plastics equipment industry as a whole is projecting only sluggish sales this year, Multiplas said its 2012 revenues are on pace to set a record.
General Manager David Wu said Multiplas’ growth reflects the general trend of the Taiwanese industry, with the smartphone sector doing reasonably well, while other markets, such as home appliances and laptop computers, are proving to be more difficult.