Fong Kee targets European market

Tainan, Taiwan — Fong Kee International Machinery Co. Ltd. is looking to attack the European market.

The maker of blow molding and extrusion machines headquartered in Tainan has exported its machines to more than 170 countries, but it's never really gained a foothold in Europe. Officials with the family-owned company hope that changes after the company invested in a booth and increased exposure at K 2019 in Düsseldorf, Germany.

"We don't have a representative in Europe," said Larry Wei, the company's president and son of its founder. "We hope to find a suitable representative for the European market after K."

He said the company buys a lot of components for its machines from Europe.

"We buy from Europe," he said at the company's headquarters in May. "But we don't sell. We will, though. We will."

Amy Wei, sales and marketing coordinator for the company and Larry Wei's niece, said the only machines they've sold in Europe are to companies that directly contact them. She said delivery time is the biggest issue in selling in Europe right now because it is extremely difficult to compete against domestic European sellers.

"For us, our leading time is usually two to three months," she said. "In Europe, it might be a month. And after service is a big concern for them, too."

FKI showed an all-electric blow molding machine at K 2019, making 20-liter jerrycans in a 30-second cycle time. The machine had the company's Industry 4.0 technology, dubbed Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA).

"It's a very fast cycle because the efficiency is good," Larry Wei said. "It's a big machine."

"This is the biggest plastics show in the world. Everyone is waiting for it every three years to see the new things," Amy Wei said. "Europe is really in the middle of the world, so most of our customers can come to it. It's not too far from Asia, and it's not too far from the North America."

She said FKI's prices are 20-30 percent cheaper than European models but still boast that they are all-electric and have interconnected Industry 4.0 systems.

FKI has annual sales of approximately US$32 million and has 200 employees in Taiwan and another 50 in a factory in China. Larry Wei said they only sell cheap, nontechnically advanced machines into the Chinese domestic market from the Chinese facility.

In the last five years, the company has sold $20 million worth of machines into the North American market and just recently closed on the sale of a $4.8 million coextrusion system to an unnamed American customer.

"Over the last five years, we've done very good in North America," Wei said.

He said Lifetime, the company most known for the manufacturer of plastic tables, is its biggest customer in the region.

"In the last two to three years, America, Japan and India have become very important to the company," Wei said.

He said they have begun to build customer bases in places like Turkey, Chile, Australia and Egypt as well.