Top Glove Eyes US$652.86 Million Revenue This Year

By Kenny Teng Khoon Hock GEORGE TOWN (Penang, Malaysia), Aug 3 (Bernama) -- Top Glove Corp Bhd, the world's biggest rubber glove manufacturer, is eyeing a revenue of 652.86 million (RM2.5 billion) this year, supported by higher sales. Chairman Lim Wee Chai said the group's annual growth rate was about 27 per cent and he was optimistic the target will be achieved. He said the group will continue to invest in automation to increase production capacity. "We will allocate about US$52.21 million (RM200 million) a year as capital expenditure (capex) to improve and increase production efficiency," he told Bernama on the sidelines of the CEO Forum 2015 here. He said the group also aimed to increase its global market share from 25 per cent now to 30 per cent by 2020. "We intend to continue expand the company and achieve the 30 per cent global market share," he said. Lim said part of the group's capex will be to boost production capacity. The group will open a new factory in Klang (in Malaysian state Selangor) by end-2016, he said. "Apart from additional factory in Klang with the production capacity of 4.4 billion pieces of glove per annum, we are also expanding our current facilities in Port Dickson and Phuket, Thailand," he said. Port Dickson is located in Malaysian state Negeri Sembilan. He said the Port Dickson factory's expansion project will be completed by January next year while the Phuket's by June next year. "Once the three projects are completed, our production capacity per annum from our 26 factories will be increase to 52.4 billion pieces from current 44.6 billion," he said. Currently, Top Glove has 27 manufacturing factories in Malaysia, Thailand and China with 484 production lines that produce 44.6 billion glove per annum. Top Glove's products are exported to over 200 countries worldwide with 31 per cent to North America, Europe (28 per cent), Asia (18 per cent), Latin America (11 per cent), Middle East (seven per cent) and the rest to Africa. Top Glove's pre-tax profit for the third quarter ended May 31, 2015 rose to an all-time high of US$26.25 million (RM100.58 million) from US$14.38 million (RM55.11 million) in the corresponding period last year. Its revenue increased US$172.60 million (RM661.19 million) from US$149.83 million (RM573.99 million) previously. --BERNAMA