Mandom expands production capacity to meet sales target

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Publicly listed cosmetics manufacturer PT Mandom Indonesia Tbk. is targeting a 5 percent increase in net sales this year to Rp 1 trillion (US$110 million) from Rp 951.6 billion last year.

To achieve its target, the company has expanded its factory, doubling its production capacity to 150 million dozen units from 75 million dozen at present.

"We have expanded our factory from 16,000 to 40,000 square meters," Mandom Indonesia's president director, Mitsuhiro Yamashita, said Friday during the official opening of the expanded plant in Cibitung, West Java.

He said that the new manufacturing facility, construction of which was started in February 2006, would be used for package production, packaging, and finished-product storage, while manufacturing would take place in another factory in Sunter, North Jakarta.

The company invested Rp 90 billion on the expansion project. Financing was generated by the issuance of rights shares in February 2006, which increased the number of company shares from 156 million to 180 million.

Besides selling on the domestic market, the company also exports its products, mainly to the United States, Brazil, the United Arab Emirates and a number of Asian countries.

Mandom Indonesia, a majority stake in which is held by parent company Mandom Corporation of Japan, is targeting an increase in its proportion of exports to 25 percent this year from 23 percent last year.

The company's domestic sales increased by 7.1 percent to Rp 753.5 billion in 2006 from Rp 700 billion in 2005, while its exports decreased by 4.1 percent to Rp 205.2 billion last year from Rp 198.1 billion the previous year.

In 2006, the company booked Rp 100.1 billion in net income, a 7.8 percent rise from Rp 92.3 billion in 2005.

Industry Minister Fahmi Idris, who also attended the ceremony, said that the cosmetics industry had notched up rapid growth over the last couple of years, both in terms of quality and technology.

He said that currently there were 829 cosmetic manufacturers nationwide, 29 of which were foreign owned.