Exclusive | Midea, China’s top home appliances maker, to expand overseas production as it eyes 10 per cent global market share
- Midea Group aims to achieve home appliances sales of US$40 billion overseas by 2025, which will give it a 10 per cent share of the global market
- Company is looking for suitable locations for manufacturing in North America while expanding production in a number of nations with an emphasis on automation
Midea Group, China’s largest home appliances company, is expanding overseas production with new plants featuring enhanced automation as part of its ambition to corner around 10 per cent of the global market within five years, according to a top executive.
The company is in the process of choosing one or two locations for setting up new manufacturing facilities with a high level of automation in North America, which is expected to be finalised before the end of the first half of this year, said Wang Jianguo, president of Midea International, a unit of Midea Group responsible for overseas operations.
The company, which has production facilities in 15 countries apart from China, plans to further expand capacity at many overseas plants, particularly in Egypt and Brazil, he said, adding that the company was also looking at mergers and acquisitions to complement those plans.
He said that while China was still the most competitive in terms of manufacturing, the company needs to use its overseas production capacity to counter such unforeseen uncertainties in the future.