EPSON’S THAILAND BASE FOR WORLD SALES

[Anonymous]

Epson creates Thailand base for world sales
 November  2005
Epson, a Japanese printer manufacturer, has selected Thailand as a base to produce inkjet printers for export. The firm late last week officially launched the first shipment of printers made in Thailand to Indonesia. According to Seiichi Hirano, the director and chief executive of the imaging and information products division, the company has co-operated with Muramoto Electron (Thailand), a Japan-based electronic appliance manufacturer, to produce inkjet printers in Thailand under an original equipment manufacturing (OEM) agreement.
“It’s the first time that Epson has used Thailand as a production base. We see Thailand as a leading electronic manufacturing base with component assembly and logistical infrastructure, and this will help us speed up our production operation,” Hirano said. Production started this month and Epson expects that production capacity will reach 300,000 to 500,000 units next year.
Epson has production bases in many countries in Asia including Indonesia, the Philippines and China. Indonesia is the largest, producing one million inkjet and photo printers a month. Thailand will become the fourth largest, following the Philippines and China in the future.
Hirano said the Thai production facilities would produce the CX4700 model. This model, which integrates printer, photocopier and scanner into one, was launched only last month.
“All the products produced here will be exported around the world and branded as Epson, made in Thailand,” he added. The firm also plans to expand the product line to cover other models in the future.
However, as the production process is under an OEM agreement, Muramoto Electron (Thailand), or Metco for short, has to invest in production facilities. The company spent Bt1.1 billion to build all facilities for Epson printer production.
Epson facilities have around 365 employees and the factory plans to increase this to 1,800 by next April to serve increased production targets

[Author]

November 23, 2005 at 10:33 AM