China's Handset Makers Fasinated with Japanese-licensed NMT in Taiwan

Industry executives report that China's branded suppliers of smartphones are fascinated with Taiwan-made consumer-electronics casings using the nano molding technology (NMT), motivating Taiwan's manufacturers to consider capacity expansion for more orders.

Taiwan's NMT-casing manufacturers include Chenming Mold Industry Corp., Catcher Technology Co., Ltd., and COXON Precision Industry Co., Ltd., which license the technology from the Japanese maker Taiseiplas Co., Ltd., whose technology involves applying nano-grade resin on aluminum casings before injecting plastic on surface to enhance textural smoothness, also reducing bonding and molding to cut cost.

According to Chenming executives, China's big-name smartphone makers are quite interested in using the technology. The company has reportedly received contracts from Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., a major home-grown manufacturer of smartphones in China, and OPPO Electronics Corp.

Optimistic about the outlook of the market, Foxcon plans to boost  production capacity from the current one million NMT casings a month. Company executives say current total output is five million casings a month across the island's NMT industry, far short of demand from China's big-name smartphone makers.

Such promising market has drawn AVY Precision Technology Inc. to branch into NMT-casing manufacturing from digital still camera casing. (KL)