Ever Polymer: Aiming for the bigger ASEAN market

“ASEAN members are many and the demands in these markets are highly diversified so we promote our TPE strength according to various categories.” says Gary Du, General Manager, Ever Polymer Co., Ltd 

For the past five years, Ever Polymer survives in the Taiwan and Chinese market where excess capacities exist, causing many raw material suppliers in the plastics sector to face great difficulties due to competition.

Given the obstacles most companies would have faced in diversified markets, Ever Polymer Co., Ltd picks the right stance to project its strength and gain in the process. Such strength has benefitted the company’s customers as well. The right stance, according to General Manager Gary Du can always put one ahead but there is a need to choose the right one and be committed to it. “When you find the right path to make a fortune, go ahead and take it,” he said. Ever Polymer’s experience in doing business in Taiwan, China, and the rest of the world is worth noting, and Mr. Du shares with International Plastics News for Asia (IRNA) the company’s plan in the ASEAN market, where multiple opportunities abound.  

IRNA: Ever Polymer has been intensifying its promotion to such markets as Southeast Asia, can you please tell us how you operate in these new markets?

Mr. Du: ASEAN is a big and important market for us. We set Malaysia as our core centre in the ASEAN region. Although the domestic market there is not big, but in Malaysia we cooperate with the right partners who know better on how to do business in the Southeast Asian region. Both economic and political conditions in Malaysia are stable and manpower is sufficient and professional. I recognise that Malaysia is great for us to step into the ASEAN market. We plan to sell more TPE products to ASEAN countries where there are many customers requesting for our specialised products and services. Our TPE products are classified into three main categories: EVERLON for industrial application, EVERSEAL for seal-related application, and EVERMEDI for medical applications.

ASEAN members are many and the demands in these markets are highly diversified so we promote our TPE strength according to various categories. Strong market orientation is very important in this region. For example, if the automotive sector is a target industry, then Thailand and Indonesia are two main markets where we can ship our TP Series products. The automotive industry in these two countries are large and have high demand for TPE products that feature  weatherability, and heat resistance. With regards to household tools, Thailand is the primary market and we ship our TA Series to this market, where local dealers are eager to sell due to robust demand. For shoes industry, Vietnam is the target market and we sell our TY Series to this market, and this series meet the corresponding standards in this market.  

For advanced 3C products, there are many of these manufacturers in Thailand while a lot of the R&D procedures are conducted in Singapore. Under these circumstances, we cooperate with advanced 3C manufacturers in different branches and know how to make their products better. The supply chain around this market is handled by our Malaysian partner and this is being run smoothly. The ability of assisting customers in their R&D procedures is our strong point. We can outdo our competitors in advanced 3C and medical sectors as we pour a lot of resources in these fields. India, Thailand, and Indonesia are all primary markets for our medical project because of the huge populations in these countries, where the medical industry is considered a big market.  
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All these markets are our next target in the coming years.

IRNA: What are the major achievements of Ever Polymer in the development of its Everlon and other compounds?

Mr. Du: For the past two decades, we provide a wide range of TPE products to the world. It started from the shoes industry in which TPE products have simple function but are demanded in huge volume. We started from this and then extended to industrial applications such as screwdrivers, brushes, and other hand tools. During this period, we learned to expand the functionalities of our TPEs. We built our laboratories with comprehensive scope to meet changing market demands. During the 1990s when this market got saturated, we further extended our TPE functionality to the field of 3C, covering mobile phones, cameras, videos, and halogen-free earphone cords. The 3C industry is currently an important business for us during the decade and even up to now, many of our TPE are manufactured for this field.

About seven years ago, I started to make contact with the medical industry and that is a whole new page for Ever Polymer. In the past we simply serve the industry, and then we started to serve human being in a more explicit and direct manner. In the medical sector, every detail is crucial because it is about humans. We are requested by customers to make TPE products absolutely safe, causing no harm to users, while at the same time we are requested to fit into environmental regulations as well. We did it. Accordingly, we are much welcomed in the sector.

IRNA: Does Ever Polymer have plans to launch new products in the future? What are these?

Mr. Du: TPE as a product of the plastics industry has been developed for about four to five decades ago. Thus, TPE functionality has been cultivated and developed to its maximum. In this field, it is hard to see a “novel product” to be released because TPE is well developed already. So to respond to this question, the point would be is how we adjust our TPE product to fit into customers’ needs. A successful TPE business comes from successful TPE application which aims to solve the problem of corresponding industries.

Ever Polymer specialises in establishing strong cooperation with customers. For the medical application case, for instance, if we are told to provide TPE for medical vessel tubes, we will ask what is going to be placed inside. It might be strong acid or strong alkali content. Once we have a comprehensive knowledge about the targeted content, we request our customers to provide us with the specifications. After that, we would develop correlated formula to meet their request. There is no such thing as once-for-all undertaking, rather, it takes a long time to pursue this kind of project during which our researchers work with customers in dealing with all those parameters. This procedure applies to all the product development such as 3C and medical applications.

Customers ought to know that raw materials have limitations. So when customers’ ideal performance and the material limitation do not match, we will inform customers to change their design, such as mould design, or do other adjustment in order to meet the target.

In the future, we will focus on medical and food industries. These two are related to human body and we will develop corresponding applications. These are two industries that show promises and Ever Polymer will step into these fields with much enthusiasm.

Ever Polymer Co., Ltd
Tel: +886-3 312 5717
Fax: +886-3 312 5718
E-mail: Everlon@everlon.com.tw
Website: www.everlon.com.tw