HONG KONG — Bolstered by strong growth in its electric and two-platen offerings, Ningbo, China-based Haitian International Holdings Ltd., China's biggest maker of injection molding equipment, posted modest sales growth in the first half of the year.
Overall sales for the first half was 3.85 billion yuan ($604 million), up 1 percent from 3.81 billion yuan ($598 million) in the first half of 2014. Net profit was up 2.9 percent to 657 million yuan ($103 million).
For the six months, domestic sales rose 3.1 percent to 2.61 billion yuan ($410 million), offsetting a 3.2 percent decline in exports to 1.17 billion yuan ($183 million). The company cited weak currencies, other than the U.S. dollar, for the dip in exports.
Sales of two-platen Jupiter machines leaped 64.2 percent year-over-year to 362 million yuan ($57 million), while sales of all-electric Zhafir Venus machines jumped 25.9 percent to 333 million yuan ($52 million).
Still, those two lines make only a fraction of the company's sales. Sales of Haitian's top-selling servo-hydraulic Mars line declined 6.4 percent to 2.74 billion yuan ($430 million).
The company sold 13,683 machines in the period, down from 14,062 in the first six months of 2014, but the average price per machine climbed 4.2 percent to 276,000 yuan ($43,300).
This spring, Haitian opened a mammoth 120,000-square-meter factory for making Zhafir electric machines in Chunxiao, near the company headquarters. The company already has begun work on expanding to a parcel next door to the new factory.
“We are not expanding only for capacity,” said Helmar Franz, Haitian's executive director and chief strategy officer, Franz said in an interview with Plastics News in Hong Kong, where Haitian released its second-quarter results. “We can make a bigger range of machines from small to big in the same place. Our flexibility is increased.”
Franz was interviewed by Plastics News in Hong Kong, where Haitian released its second-quarter results.
Wryly acknowledging the turmoil in Chinese markets, Franz said, “We don't look at just Friday to Monday. We look long-term.”