Everest Textile Expands Capacity in Drive Upmarket

Everest Textile Co., Ltd., a Taiwan producer of filament woven fabrics and yarn-dyed woven fabrics used in apparel, home-use textiles and accessories, will spend NT$1.2 billion (US$34.3 million at US$1:NT$35) to expand capacity at its mills in Taiwan, Thailand, and mainland China as part of a strategy to shift upmarket.

The project will involve the establishment of a textile plant in the mainland China provinces of Jiangsu or Zhejiang to produce long-filament fabrics. The company decided to focus the plant's operations on long-filament materials in order to complement its short-filament fabric plant in Shanghai and avoid the intense price competition in the short-filament fabric sector.

The new mill will have both weaving and dyeing lines, and will cost US$30 million to build. Construction of the new mill will begin before the end of this year.

In order to boost the production value of its mill in Thailand, Everest plans to switch half of its manufacturing capacity to the production of high-margin fabrics for sportswear. Currently the mill specializes in pant fabrics. The change will reduce its monthly production capacity from 2 million yards to 1.5 million yards.

Everest will soon build a second mill in Thailand at a cost of NT$100 million (US$2.6 million). The new plant will produce fabrics for making home-use textiles and accessories and have an initial monthly production capacity of one million yards, rising eventually to three million yards.

In Taiwan the company will add new machinery for use in applying adhesive substances to fabrics. The company will also increase production capacity dedicated to long-filament fabrics to 47% of its total output at the Taiwan plant. The capacity reserved for short-filament fabrics will be 27% and that for processed-filament fabrics to 22%.

According to senior company officials, Taiwan is no longer competitive in the short-filament fabric market. As a result, the company is switching production to higher-end materials, such as long-filament fabrics, home-use fabrics, sportswear fabrics, and specialty fabrics.

This strategy has helped Everest win business from such high-end buyers as Nike, the Gap, Express, and Adidas. It has also enabled the textile maker to avoid the sharp price competition at the lower end of the market.

Everest offers a full line of high-end fabrics and is authorized to use such leading brand tags as Lycra, Teflon, and Scotchguard on its fabrics. It has also developed own-brand fabrics, including Evermoss (outerwear fabrics), Evercamax (urban-wear fabrics), Eversuede (urban-wear, outerwear and upholstery fabrics), Everblack (urban-wear fabrics), Maxfree (outerwear, urban-wear, active/sportswear and junior clothing fabrics).