Magazines Archives - 2008 April

JAPANESE manufacturer of personal care products Shiseido Co Ltd is poised to build a factory in Vietnam to serve the expanding Asian market. It has established a wholly-owned manufacturing
subsidiary, Shiseido Vietnam Inc, for the task.

The 21,400sqm facility, which will be constructed at the Amata Industrial Park in Dong Nai Province on a 100,000sqm site, entails a US$38-million investment.

The construction of the plant, which will produce mid-range and economically-priced skin-care products, is set to start in December this year, with the completion expected by October 2009.
Operations are scheduled to start in December next year.

“Shiseido has decided to acquire a site and build a factory in Vietnam in order to augment its product supply system from the present level for Asian markets centred on ASEAN [countries],
which are experiencing ongoing expansion and growth,” the company said.

However, China will continue to be the company’s core focus of overseas operations, which were expected to have contributed 36% of the firm’s overall net sales for the fiscal period ended
March 2008.

Earlier, Shiseido announced that its Chinese subsidiary, Shiseido Liyuan Cosmetics Co Ltd (SLC), has renewed the skin-care offerings in its AUPRES line, which is designed exclusively for the Chinese market. Shiseido, which posted a 3.5% gain in net sales to ¥694.6 billion (approximately
US$7 billion) and a 75.2% increase in net income to ¥25.3 billion for the fiscal period ended March 2007, attributed its strong performance last year to the solid showing in China. The Chinese market has been driving Shiseido’s overseas sales, which rose 14% to contribute 32% of its overall
sales last year.

Meanwhile, the company has also launched its products in Eastern Europe last month via a distribution partnership between its Parisian subsidiary, Shiseido Europe SAS, and Everet Group
Ltd, a Ljubljana-based distributor for fragrances and cosmetics in the Balkans Peninsula.

With the high sales growth of 21% to ¥67.38 billion over the past few quarters for Shiseido products in Europe and an overall sales improvement of 3.7% to ¥536.73 billion for the period,
Shiseido has revealed its intension to roll out its products to 55 stores at “carefully selected locations” in Romania and Bulgaria over the next two years.

This will bring the group’s products into 41 European countries, and 70 countries worldwide.
The group plans to target the quality of its products and customer service at the rapidly-growing high-income segment in Romania and Bulgaria to drive sales.