Sales increased more than 20 percent to $1.8 billion for Ningbo, China-based Haitian International Holdings Ltd., putting 2020 in the company record book after customers bought more than 43,000 injection molding machines.
Sales jumped 28.6 percent for the Chinese press producer's best-selling Mars-brand series, mostly from customers in the medical market.
Haitian benefited from strict pandemic-related measures put in place by the Chinese government to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus, according to a company press release.
"Thanks to this rapid recovery in the domestic economic situation, the entire group experienced strong, growing demand," the release says about calendar-year 2020 results.
Press sales were up 20.3 percent compared with the prior year and reached $1.8 billion (RMB 11.8 billion) following an increase in exports. Haitian officials point to their ever-growing global sales network for contributing to a 2.1 percent increase in exports to $537.5 million (RMB 3.5 billion).
"Due to the strong demand for mass medical products and packaging in the first half of the year, there was a new sales record of the Haitian Mars series with more than 37,000 machines sold," the release stated.
The household goods and automotive markets also saw growth in 2020. Customers in these markets bought the electric Zhafir series and the Haitian Jupiter series, which has two-platen technology. These machine sales were up 6.8 percent to $220 million (RMB 1.4 billion) and 3.2 percent to $199 million (RMB 1.3 billion), respectively.
Haitian officials also came up with a five-year strategic plan at the beginning of 2021 that calls for strengthening its global market presence and consistently expanding its market share.
"With industry-specific solutions, we will increase competitiveness in the high-end market, among others, and advance digital manufacturing solutions," Zhang Bin, executive director of Haitian International, said in the release.
The company plans more digitalization of in-house manufacturing, particularly in terms of research and development, intelligent production processes, digital system integration and process control.
The strategy also emphasizes the standardization of machine-building components to further increase efficiency and smart manufacturing.
"With the establishment of a young and innovative team, we will focus more on manufacturing processes and improve production capabilities in terms of flexibility and intelligence. The entire group will continue to work hard to grow and develop successfully together with customers, employees and business partners in the future," Zhang said.