GLOVE maker Supermax Corp Bhd is expanding its operations into the Latin American and Middle Eastern countries.
Supermax’s Executive Chairman and Group Managing Director Datuk Seri Stanley Thai noted that Egypt would be the company’s gateway to the Northern African and Middle Eastern regions, whilst Uruguay would provide the access to Latin America.
“These countries would be the springboard to build our brand in the global market. Currently, 69% of our production gloves are sold under our own proprietary brand,” he said.
He said Supermax is also setting up more distribution centres to better cater to the market, and also spread out into Eastern Europe.
Supermax, which accounts for 12% market share of the total global rubber glove industry, has six distribution centres/corporate offices based in the US, Brazil, Europe and Canada; and has 250 independent distributors.
For this year, Supermax has allocated RM65.8 million as capital expenditure for their planned shift to automation. It expects cost savings of 40% to 50% from labour.
With the new expansions, Supermax’s production capacity is expected to reach 23 billion pieces of gloves by end-2013. It also plans to increase its nitrile glove production capacity to 52% from 35%, or 5.2 billion to 12.3 billion nitrile gloves.
Meanwhile, the company also plans to expand its National Distribution Headquarters in the US to capture a higher market share of nitrile gloves in the US dental market in the next two to three years; it also hints at expanding to Vietnam and Indonesia in the future but commented on having no immediate plans as of yet.